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September 2005

Raccoon's in The Guardian

The Guardian's online over-by-over coverage of the final day of the Fifth Test has come top of website editor Emily Bell's Guardian.co.uk Top 5 for this week. Among the edited highlights reproduced from that tumultuous day was my remark about Kevin Pietersen and the dead raccoon under his helmet.

Riots in Belfast? What riots in Belfast?

Yes it's always good to have an historic sporting triumph to keep civil unrest off the front pages...

Congratulations to you and the whole team on your fantastic series win.

It's been sport at its very best, played in a wonderful spirit between two exceptional sides, and has gripped the whole country.

With so many people following this extraordinary series ball by ball, I'm not sure our economy could stand many more days like today - or our nerves any more excitement.

Ashes, bombers, weasels, feet, mouths

Ah yes, sport and politics can be such a hilarious mix sometimes.

Here's an extract from the hansard from the House of Reps session in Canberra earlier this evening. By way of background, the Dramatis Personae of this vignette are as follows:

Earth, I'm comin down!

Warmest congratulations to you, the England team and all in the squad for the magnificent achievement of regaining the Ashes. This has been a truly memorable series and both sides can take credit for giving us all such a wonderfully exciting and entertaining summer of cricket at its best.

ELIZABETH R

- The Queen of Australia, among other countries, displays her partisanship in a congratulatory message to Michael Vaughan

And now I've seen everything

I have just witnessed what can only be described as Test cricket's equivalent of the lowering of the Olympic flag, folding it up and carrying it away. After players left the field for bad light with Australia requiring 337 to win from 18.2 overs, umpires Rudi Koertzen and Billy Bowden returned to the field, marched down the pitch, turned around, looked at the sky, looked at each other, marched down to each wicket and lifted the bails.

How and where to follow The Final Session

I was born during the Adelaide Test match when Australia, under Richie Benaud, regained the Ashes. From four days old until my first week of high school, shortly after my twelfth birthday, Australia held the Ashes (and John Snow still hasn't been forgiven). We got them back for a couple of brief periods: January 1975 to August 1977, and January 1983 to August 1985.

Australia picked up the Ashes once more on August 1, 1989. It's sixteen years and eleven days later, and barring an English choke of Greg Normanesque proportions, they're on their way back to England.

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