24 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming

Like many we wrote before the series that this Australian team was there for the taking, but despite this our natural English pessimism led us to predict that the series would end 2-2. How wrong we were. All 13 players used by England during the series performed well – even Paul Collingwood who led the way in the field, whilst only four Australian players turned up – five if you include Mitchell Johnson at Perth. England prepared thoroughly, were well led and performed brilliantly, and after 24 years of woe down under, it feels good to give the Australians a dose of their own medicine. Long may it continue.

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England on the brink of joining the immortals

On a day when that doughty fighter Paul Collingwood announced his retirement from test cricket, England are on the verge of gaining admittance to the cricketing equivalent of Valhalla after once again dominating a pathetic Australian side on day 4 at the SCG. If Adelaide and Melbourne were good, Sydney has been even better. Other than Perth and the first innings at Brisbane, England have utterly dominated this series and a final scoreline of 3-1 will provide the gloss that their efforts have deserved.

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‘Daddy’ Cook in the pink again

On a day when the SCG went pink in memory of Jane McGrath, Alastair Cook again looked in prime form as his plunder from the series rose to three hundreds and 766 runs. In the process, Cook became the 2nd highest run accumulator ever in a test series for England going past Denis Compton (753 vs South Africa in 1947) and his mentor Graham Gooch (752 against India in 1990 – in just three tests).

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A sting in the tail

When James Anderson took his fourth wicket of the morning to reduce Australia to 189/8 with only five overs of the second new ball gone, England looked well set for another big victory here at the SCG. But a second fifty of the series from Mitchell Johnson and excellent support from Ben Hilfenhaus in a 9th wicket partnership of 76 may have given Australia a way back into the Test.

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