It had been a while since I stopped enjoying this Ashes, but watching Cook and KP bat reignited the fire. Alastair Cook is having the time of his career. He is the one who was being considered for making the way for someone else, before Ashes, but rose to the challenge, quite magnificently. He's been itching the Aussie eyes. Australia's new "discovery" Michael Beer almost got Cook out. But almost is an important word. After he was given out Billy Bowden doubted that it might be a no ball and so it was. Cook was walking away and it was nice to see KP call him back. Bell, too scored a ton and continued his tradition of almost never scoring a century when no one else did before him in the innings. It's been only once when his century came when no one else reached 3 figures. That happened earlier this year, against Bangladesh. But not like he has always only capitalised on opportunities, there's been 70+ scores when runs were badly needed. And his ton in '05 against Pakistan came when England were 39/2 and he shared a partnership of 154 runs with Kevin Pietersen. KP, Cook, Bell seem to bat well with one another.

Meanwhile, at the SCG, England are in command and winning the Ashes by 3-1 seems likely. I'm not much concerned with an innings defeat. For me, 3-1 is more than enough. It's Down Under, it's against the ex-World No.1, it's the Ashes.

Some interesting stats about the hot Cookie

Alastair Cook has spent the most time ever in a 5 Test series, over 36 hours at the crease. Cook is now the 2nd highest English series scorer with 766 runs behind Wally Hammond's 906.
He is engaged to former glamour model, Alice Hunt. I heard she is 33 and was among the England WAGs involved in Allen Stanford fiasco.

Brief scores after Day 3:

• Aus 280 (Johnson 53, Watson 45, Anderson 4/66, Bresnan 3/89)
• Eng 488/7 (Cook 189, Bell 115, Strauss 60, Prior 54*, Johnson 3/97)