A skunk hairdo, terrorism and something called the Red Sox

For an American take on the outcome of the Ashes, here is an odd little article from the Washington Post. Kevin Pietersen's hair, the London bombings and baseball all manage to sneak in, but neither Andrew Flintoff nor Shane Warne rate a mention.

Inspired after finding this piece, I decided to look elsewhere in the US for coverage. The most obvious place to start was in the country's other big paper, the New York Times. Sadly the best they could manage was a piddly little sidebar which read:

ENGLAND: BONKERS FOR THE BASHERS Tens of thousands of fans lined the streets of central London and jammed Trafalgar Square to hail the England cricket team after it beat Australia in the Ashes series for the first time in nearly two decades. "Kangaroo Bashers" was the boast on T-shirts worn by many fans who crowded the 1.5-mile parade route. The parade also included the victorious England's women's team, which beat Australia in a series for the first time since 1963.

Looking further afield I found this patronising piece from a student in the Indiana Daily Student; this even more patronising piece from a British journalist for TV network NBC; this article in the Houston Chronicle; and this snippet (scroll down to find it) from the Chicago Sun-Times - which at least has the manners to admit it doesn't know what it is talking about.

Sigh. There was a period in the 1970s when the US led the world in journalism, and more pertinently in sports journalism. Those days seem long gone now.