Christmas comes in widescreen

Sunset+Vine for DD Home Entertainment, 8hrs, 33mins, £19.99
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A dozen years ago, when I was writing a book about cricket obsession, I identified what I thought was a dominant characteristic of those of us addicted to this ridiculous game: a tendency to blub when watching our videos of Botham's Ashes. We could be the strong and silent type in real life, dry-eyed at weddings and funerals, but this dismally packaged, atrociously edited hour of highlights of highlights could reduce us all to weeping jellies. The mere thought of Chris Old's 29 at Headingley was too much for some. In which case, we are in real trouble now.

This three-disc DVD set is Channel 4's coverage of the summer boiled down and slightly reshaped into eight hours of instant nostalgia. In essence, it's what you want for Christmas. I already have it, which means that for me the yuletide season will be one long disappointment. It's everything you need or expect from the mighty Sunset+Vine organisation. I skipped over the first Test at Lord's, and may continue to do so for the rest of my life. Instead I moved straight to Edgbaston, and scarcely had Ricky Ponting won the toss and elected to field before the tears began to flow. These were tears of laughter, of course, but the proper emotional ones followed soon afterwards. It was the first time I'd watched this Test since it actually happened, and by the end I was completely exhausted. And exhilarated by the knowledge that there were two-and-a-half DVDs still to watch.

It's all here, or nearly all. Mark Nicholas coining the phrase "Crikey O'Reilly". Tony Greig saying that Flintoff should bowl a yorker at Gillespie, three-tenths of a second before he does and gets him out lbw. There's Brett Lee's grin, Pietersen's extraordinary back-foot thumps through mid-on, Ian Bell's many nicks to the keeper. Because it's on DVD and widescreen, you see more than you might have done on TV, and the picture quality is better. Because they have so much time to play with, they have been able to stretch the format a little, so that we see the whole of that extraordinary Flintoff over against Langer and Ponting and not just the balls that got them out. We don't see Flintoff commiserating with Brett Lee after Edgbaston, an image widely conveyed the following day and epitomising the spirit of the series.

Perhaps because we are going to be living with this set for the rest of our lives, it is worth noting a few complaints. Presumably for copyright reasons, the Mambo No. 5 theme tune is nowhere to be heard; instead there is some pompous library music which you will quickly grow to hate. There are too many cleverly edited packages full of people getting out in slow motion, and I could have probably done without most of the post-match interviews, from which you never learn anything of the slightest interest. We are also denied, in the main body of highlights, even a brief glimpse of The Analyst in his van. Instead Yozzer is packed off into the Extra Features, where he presents a scripted technical overview of the series which is duller and less informative than any of his unscripted contributions throughout the summer.

Other Extra Features, though, are more useful. The round-table discussion during one of the lunch breaks at The Oval, when each of the commentators gave his highlight of the summer, is included intact. `The Best of 4sight' is an extraordinary compilation of super slow-motion clips: it's too cleverly edited, needless to say, but includes some wonderful images, such as Ian Bell's instinctive catch at short leg and the Brett Lee bouncer that made Andrew Strauss's bat wobble as though it was made of blancmange. Best of all, possibly, is Richie Benaud's Goodbye, which is just the last 10 or 15 minutes of his last commentary, unedited, with Benaud-like rhythms intact. I blubbed at this as well.

In fact, after watching all afternoon, I was nearly as dehydrated as Dean Jones in the Madras Tied Test. What a marvellous collection this is. Somehow I doubt it'll sell too well in Australia.