"I don't know what it feels like," groaned James Anderson on the morning after the night before. The Ashes had been retained and the celebrations had, by all accounts, been a controlled explosion - sufficiently forceful to shake the foundations of the team hotel in South Yarra, but at the same time respectful to the circumstances of a series that remains to be wrapped up. It is a measure of an astonishingly well-thought-out campaign that even the moments of euphoria have been professional.
And so it was that, even through the fog of his hangover, it was possible to glimpse in Anderson the character that has carried him towards the pinnacle of his career. His softly spoken words were made softer still by the throbbing in his head, but if you listened carefully they had an unmistakable edge to them - emboldened, no doubt, by the triumph to which he had contributed only 24 hours previously.
"I always knew that I had a lot more ability and skill than I showed in my early career," said Anderson. "I knew I could improve a hell of a lot, and I also knew I could perform at this level because I did so to a certain extent when I started out. So I just thought if I could try and improve as much as I can, work hard at my game, I could perform for England.
"It's a great achievement, and it was an amazing place to do it at the MCG," he added. "It was a fantastic atmosphere from the English fans, and a great place to retain the Ashes. For me and the rest of the team, we've grown up watching some unsuccessful trips to Australia, and I've been involved in one in the past, so it was a dream come true, and brilliant to be part of such a fantastic performance."
Anderson deserves his moment more than most. Not only is he the leading wicket-taker in the series with 17 scalps at 29.29, he has also matured into his role as the true leader of the England pack - a process that might have looked inevitable when he made his international debut at the MCG back in 2002-03, an astonishing eight years ago this month, but which had seemed virtually inconceivable in the latter years of Duncan Fletcher's reign. On the last Ashes tour Anderson had seemed belittled and withdrawn, an ever-wobbly spare wheel whose five wickets at 82.60 were a precise reflection of his fragile state of mind.
Now, however, he is a character transformed, a player who has burrowed so deep into Australia's psyche that one of his worthier opponents of the series, Shane Watson, described an error that he made while batting as a nightwatchman on the third evening at Perth as "one of his favourite moments on a cricket field". Such hyperbole betrays the extent to which Anderson has rattled the opposition on this trip - the "pussy" who was derided by Justin Langer in his leaked dossier during the 2009 Ashes has grown a mane and learnt to roar.
In the opinion of David Saker, England's plaudit-strewn bowling coach, Anderson is close to becoming the best fast bowler in the world, with only South Africa's No. 1-ranked Dale Steyn challenging him in terms of current form, and on the evidence of 2010 it is hard to disagree. At Melbourne, he became the 13th England bowler to pass 200 Test wickets, but 49 - or nearly a quarter - of those have come in the past 12 months, including a career-best 11 for 71 in the first Test against Pakistan in July, and two critical first-innings four-fors in each of England's Ashes wins at Adelaide and Melbourne.
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