England-India Test series best since 2005 Ashes - Agnew

This series between England and India has definitely been the best that I have been involved in since the Ashes in 2005.

Winning in Australia in 2010-11 was also special, but this has had all the ingredients that makes Test match cricket so special - the intensity, the combative nature at times, the immense skill.

It has had everything, it has been every bit as competitive and compelling as any Ashes series.

Of course, England supporters would have loved Gus Atkinson to have scored those runs, even just six more for a tie, but to get a finish like that - regardless of who wins - is absolutely great for Test cricket.

I've enjoyed the competitive nature throughout, it is what Test cricket is all about.

You don't see it in T20 or franchise cricket. It shows how much people and the players care about Test cricket and playing for your country, you can tell the difference.

The 7,187 runs scored is the most in a five-Test series, and it is just the second time in the past 20 years that every game in a series of that length has gone to a final day.

If any administrator in the world game looks at this series and is considering four-day Tests as the way to go, they shouldn't be an administrator in cricket. That's all that needs to be said.

We had the fourth day on a Sunday at The Oval and it was absolutely packed, and a sellout on day five which is fabulous.

And this morning, to see Chris Woakes hobbling down those steps at number 11, it was just pure drama.

Colin Cowdrey batted with a broken arm in 1963, though he also did not face a ball, but Paul Terry did when he faced West Indies with his arm in a sling in 1984.

It was a relief that Woakes managed to stay at the non-striker's end because I'm not sure how India would have bowled to him.

It's all well and good to say you go there and bounce it in at his shoulder or whatever, but it's not very nice when you are faced with that possibility as a bowler.

If you go back to key moments in this match, particularly with 73 runs needed with seven wickets in hand, England should be winning from there.

There will be comments about Harry Brook's dismissal and I'll be one who says, really, was that necessary? With the game just within your grasp, the really hard-nosed professional attitude is that you win the game.

Joe Root and Brook had just snatched the game away from them with such an incredible 195-run partnership.

But if you speak to Michael Vaughan and Sir Alastair Cook, people who have scored far many more Test runs than I have, they'll say they're OK with it, so an old-timer shrugs his shoulders and says 'fair enough'.

But Brook was the only one who could have seized the game in the manner that he did because Root just played in his quiet, professional way.

He has since said he regretted the shot got that him out and fair enough to him, it's big of him to say that. You just hope that next time, in Sydney when they're 2-1 up to win the Ashes, he'll see England home!

At the start of the series my worry was that if it didn't go well, all of England's carefully laid plans for Australia could be in a mess and you wouldn't know what they would do, going forward.

But it has not been the case at all. We have been choosing our starting XIs for the first Test in Perth and it is pretty much the same as it would be if we had sat down in May and answered the same question.

That is such a positive place to be - it sends a real message to Australia.

India have been outstanding themselves, though. They have not helped themselves in the final match with their selection, but they still won.

If you think back to when they were 0-2 in Manchester at the start of their second innings, they have shown enormous resilience.

They are a new team and although Shubman Gill is very laid-back outwardly, he has a steely side to him - he reminds me of David Gower.

He will learn so much from this experience and they seem to have great spirit.

Jonathan Agnew was speaking to BBC Sport cricket writer Ffion Wynne.