So on the morning of the day after exactly how did England regain the Ashes? Just look at the statistics:

Who scored most runs?
Australia

Which team had six of the seven leading run makers?
Australia

Who took most wickets?
Australia

Which team had the three leading wicket-takers?
Australia

Who won the series?
England

The bottom line is Test matches are set up in the first innings and England batted like clowns in the first knock just once. Australia did it twice and that proved to be the difference between the sides.

Sure England got away with one in Cardiff and the destiny of the famous urn could well have been academic before we reached the Oval, but in a bold attempt to smash national stereotypes, the hosts showed some stoic resistance from a couple of unlikely sources while the Aussies failed to deliver when it mattered in Wales and then the Baggy Green crumbled on a crumbled pitch in South London.

The whinging Aussie press are claiming the toss of the coin at The Oval decided the Ashes with groundsman Bill Gordon under orders to produce a pitch favourable to the hosts although their batsmen rather diluted their own conspiracy theory by scoring 348 batting last.

Four years on from the 2005 success and there is no clamour for an open top bus parade or Messer’s Cook, Swann, Broad, Anderson, Prior, Trott, Bopara, Panesar and Onions to join the rest of their team-mates with MBE’s

This series was never going to be as exciting as the 2005 series. The narrowest win in Ashes history was followed by a match that England were only one wicket away from snatching before a three wicket home victory. Of course it all culminated in an ultra tense final day at The Oval.

That was an anomaly of acute excitement which probably won’t be ever repeated.

Of course all these incredible finales were played to a backdrop of England having not beaten the old enemy in an Ashes series for 18 years.

But probably the most exciting part about that series was that England were going head-to-head and eventually beating unquestionably the best team in the world and some would argue one of the top three teams in the history of the game.

The 2009 series did have some echoes of 2005 with the pendulum of momentum going back and forth.

But when England embarked on their 2005 boozeathon it was no doubt fuelled in the fact that they had just beaten the team of Hayden-Langer-Ponting-Gilchrist-McGrath and Warne – legends of the game.

Of course Andrew Strauss and his men can only beat the team put in front of them but Australia have won just six of their past 16 Tests and have now dropped to fourth in the Test rankings.

As Strauss said before Leeds, the Australians have lost their aura and it reflected in the mood of the nation.

Unlike four yeas ago, there was not a hint of cricket on the front pages on the morning of the Oval Test, let alone the back pages dominated by Manchester Unity’s defeat to Burnley.

Of course this Ashes series was not on terrestrial television. What effect that had on the series failing to grip the nation in the same way – well you decide.

So even though most of England’s batsmen averaged less than 30 and most of England’s bowlers averaged more than 40, it was the hosts who played the better cricket when it mattered so hats off to them for avenging the 2006/7 whitewash in Australia.

The England cricket team ‘s  next test will be truly significant when they take on the number one team in the world ,South Africa, this winter and if they beat them  in their own backyard then that really would be start of something special. Watch this space.