Take a breath and enjoy the victory

By Chris O'Keefe

Is it just me or is it actually a relief that it's all over!

I don't think my nerves could take any more of that exciting cricket between England and Australia. There hasn't been a day of this series where either side were not in with a chance of winning at some stage, with the exception of Lord's. Even when Australia were following on at Trent Bridge, there was the thought of Australia sneaking a 180 run lead and putting England under pressure.

As it happened they only set a mere 129 to win. I say that tentitavely because I've seen 12 years of Shane Warne terrorising England with balls spinning every which way and Andrew Strauss managed to fall victim to his best delivery of all time only weeks earlier.

When the dust settles and people look back at the series I think England dominated large parts of the series and were in a commanding position in almost all of the tests after Lord's.

The biggest plus point is that England have discovered that they have match winners all the way through their side. Besides the obvious influence of Andrew Flintoff bowler Simon Jones was unplayable on many occassions during the series. Centuries from Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Flintoff and captain Michael Vaughan were taking the game away from Australia.

Only the form of Ian Bell batting at four could worry the England selectors. However Paul Collingwood may yet solve that problem anyway before the tours of Pakistan and India this winter.

England should enjoy this and then set a bigger goal, beat the Australians down under! If they do that then they will be officially the world's top test team.