The stats don't tell the facts

This was not a classic Ashes contest. The history books will record that, as expected, England won the series and thus retained the urn, but statistics can never convey the full story of the English summer.

The series had it all; the David Warner-Joe Root affair, left-field selections by both teams, a world record debut for Ashton Agar, England's often glacial approach with bat and ball, some blatant time wasting by certain players, the Australian coach publicly calling an England player a cheat and, in between all that, a smattering, but only just, of decent cricket from both sides.

The series was much tighter than many observers had anticipated. Talk of a 5-0 whitewash to the host nation became so much hot air in the aftermath of the thrilling first Test at Trent Bridge where Australia came within a whisker of claiming an improbable victory.