The boys of summer

England's Summer of Cricket 2006 Dd Home Entertainment, £24.99

The English summer of 2006 was always going to have a lot to live up to; 2005 had included Bangladesh beating Australia, a tied NatWest Series final, some dazzling one-day innings by Kevin Pietersen ... oh, and England regained the Ashes.

But last year did provide its own versions of drama and intrigue, as well as a bit of cricket on the side, and as supporters try to wrestle their way through a bleak midwinter the season can be relived on a three-disc DVD set.

It amounts to over three hours of action and it is certainly value for money. Disc one takes in the drawn Test series against Sri Lanka (yes, England really did drop nine catches at Lord's, Pietersen really was that amazing at Edgbaston and Murali was a magician at Trent Bridge).

A nice touch throughout the collection is the way Mark Nicholas gives each Test a context by reviewing and previewing the action with the help of newspaper cuttings, which means the season unfolds in front of you the same way the stories developed at the time.

This approach is especially useful for the second Test series, against Pakistan, which produced enough material for a three-disc collection all of its own. Before it started there was the introduction of England's second stand-in captain, then Monty Panesar's hand-clapping brilliance, not to forget Mohammad Yousuf's three-foot wide bat. But, of course, as with all great dramas the extraordinary scenes are left until the end.

August 20 began like many other Test days, with England fighting hard to stay in the match. However, it ended as an unwanted piece of history. We all know the story, but just to summarise it included the words Hair, balls and Doctrove (honest, he was there too). The saga is played out in full and it once again it leaves the feeling that the whole thing could so easily have been avoided. But then this DVD would have lost one of its main selling points.

The action is brought to you by Sunset and Vine, the production company which revolutionised cricket coverage with Channel 4 and has gone on to produce the Channel Five highlights package. The footage is naturally faultless, but taking the terrestrial version does mean the viewer is limited to three commentators - Nicholas, Geoff Boycott and Simon Hughes - which can get a little tiresome by the end of the seventh Test.

One-day cricket isn't forgotten with highlights of both series, plus extended versions of Sri Lanka's incredible chase at Headingley and rare colour ed-clothing victories for England at Trent Bridge and Edgbaston. Those wins included names like Yardy, Read and Broad. Nothing like sticking to a winning side. The extra one-day highlights come on disc three, which also includes ultra-motion footage and interviews with Pietersen, Andrew Strauss and Duncan Fletcher along with stats and the Analyst.

It was a mixed summer for England - three proper Test-match victories, the emergence of some talented young cricketers, but no upturn in their one-day form. However, after watching the DVDs you are left with the sense that England would head to Australia with a strong chance of retaining the Ashes. Wouldn't they?