I’ve loved this Ashes series, even though England has lost it, because each game they lost contained moments when they could have won – and not just moments, but whole half-hours, and occasional mornings, and even the odd day. Test matches, and entire test series, have a wonderful open-ended quality, and then an equally wonderful finality when the door eventually shuts. Whenever a game ends, there’s always that strange feeling that there must be one more twist life. But the haunted look on the faces of the defeated players tells you that there isn’t.

Ashes to Ashes, LRB