ECB plan Trafalgar Square victory parade

Thousands of fans packed Trafalgar Square on December 8, 2003, to cheer the England Rugby team on winning the World Cup © AFP

The Greater London Authority has offered the ECB use of Trafalgar Square for a victory parade, in the event of England winning The Ashes at The Oval next week.

England, who lead the series 2-1, need to win or draw the final Test against Australia to reclaim the Ashes, which they haven't held for 18 years. The ECB has provisionally booked Trafalgar Square for next Tuesday, the most obvious venue for parading the winning team.

London's famous square has hosted open-top bus tours and parades for other victorious sporting teams in recent years. In 2003, the England Rugby team returned back from Australia with the World Cup and received a tumultuous welcome from home fans: over 750,000 people turned up to see their heroes, before which several thousand crammed into Heathrow airport to cheer their arrival.

And in 2004, the square was the venue for the victorious British Olympic and Paralympic teams of the games in Athens. Indeed, the announcement in July that London was to host the 2012 Olympics saw the square packed with yet more cheering supporters.

But at least one England player wasn't overcome with joy at the news. "I'm not interested," said Steve Harmison. "As long as we win the Ashes, I couldn't give a monkey's about the celebrations afterwards. But I'm not bothered about the celebrations. I will be happier going home to Ashington than riding on an open-topped bus. That's not really my scene."

And Marcus Trescothick, speaking to BBC Sport, urged fans to be cautious: "Great things lie ahead if we win but we don't want to get drawn into it because we'll lose our focus." With today's news that Simon Jones, England's trump-card in this series, has failed a fitness test, England still have five days of intense cricket ahead of them, in what is the team's biggest Test match in a decade.