Perspective

Yasin Omar will be forgotten. Al-Zawahiri will be a footnote. The July bombings will be a detail of history, but people will still talk about the 2005 Edgbaston Ashes Test.

When my children are grown up, the names of Flintoff and Warne will trip off the tongues of commentators like those of Laker or Sobers. The last-wicket heroics of Simon Jones, Lee and Kasprowicz will be flashed up as benchmarks when unlikely batsmen struggle on. Warne’s unbelievable leg-break to Strauss, Flintoff’s first-ball perfect yorker to Kasprovicz, and Harmison’s ingenious disposal of Clarke deserve to be held up as exemplars of bowling’s arts, while Flintoff’s nine sixes will inspire a generation. And the two-run margin of victory, after twenty hours of unique cricket, will be remembered by all of us that sat through those nail-biting final minutes (I actually threw up) for the rest of our lives.

All that, and there are still three matches to go in the series.