Congratulations to the England cricket team

Up at 6.30am this morning for another (half-) day's training in London. At 7am I wandered into the living room not quite smarting from last night's abject humiliation (and yet the manager won't resign and the board won't sack him). Switching on the TV for day five of the final test I saw that England had India at 75-3 at lunch, with the dangerous Dravid and Tendulkar at the wicket sharing a stand of around 40.

I only had time to watch two overs before I had to leave. By that time India were 76-5, with both Tendulkar and Dravid out. By the time I settled down in Future's London office the game was over. 14 more overs had been bowled, and England had skittled India for 100 to win the test and square the series. In many ways, this result was more impressive than beating Australia on our own turf.

The England team were decimated by withdrawals and injuries - five members of the Ashes-winning team were missing from the final test for one reason or another. A number of players made their first-team debuts, others were new to cricket at this level (even the veteran Shaun Udal, who took four wickets today) and to mix things up a little more we had an untried captain. Comparisons with a certain football team who surrendered abjectly last night are, of course, deliberate.