Cricket: England victory ends 16 years of Ashes heartache

A tired and emotional Ricky Ponting made his way from the Australian dressing-room and offered Michael Vaughan his hand on the players balcony of the Alec Bedser stand.

Bad light had forced the players of England and Australia from the pitch, making it a rather soft and touching way for such an intense, hard-fought and brilliant series to end.

Yet, in that simple act, the Australian captain was handing over ownership of cricket's oldest and most treasured prize - The Ashes.

It is more than 18 years since English cricket last celebrated this feat, when Gladstone Small caught Merv Hughes in the deep at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 28 December 1986, and yesterday a nation rose to its feet once more to applaud a team that it has every right to be proud of.

Kevin Pietersen, who scored a quite brilliant 158 here to take the fifth Test out of Australia's reach, and ensure England retained their 2-1 lead in the series, will grab the headlines. And deservedly so.

Without him the Ashes could have been making their way back to Sydney with Ponting and his Australian team-mates.

But every member of Vaughan's dedicated and vibrant young side should be looked on as a hero.

Andrew Flintoff has been a colossus, inspiring Vaughan's charges on every occasion they were in trouble, yet at some stage in this astonishing series each of the 12 players used by England has contributed to the team's success.

Even Paul Collingwood, playing in his only Test of the summer, batted for 71 minutes with Pietersen when England looked asthough they might yet blow it.

It will take some time for these players to realise just what they have achieved during the last two months, or come to terms with their new-found status.

Indeed, their lives may never be the same again. But during the next few days each of them can sit down and reflect on taking part in the best Test series that this great sport has ever seen.

There may have been Test series of higher quality but never can there have been one that has engrossed and played with the emotions of those directly involved or a nation in such a manner.

From the first ball at Lord's on 21 July the action has been compelling, and following the 239-run defeat in the first Test very few of us gave England any chance of regaining the "little urn".

Yet regain it they have, in a style and manner which suggests they will soon overtake Australia and become the number one side in the world.

- INDEPENDENT