Queen honours cricket stars

Feb 10, 2006, 15:50 GMT

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II honoured Michael Vaughan and his England cricket team-mates yesterday at Buckingham Palace.

The Ashes-winning skipper collected an OBE for his monumental efforts last summer, as did team coach Duncan Fletcher, chairman of selectors David Graveney and manager Phil Neale.

All the other England stars - who helped defeat Australia for the first time since 1987 - were in attendance.

MBEs were awarded to Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles, Stephen Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Geraint Jones, Simon Jones, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss and Marcus Trescothick.

The summer's thrilling Ashes series helped the popularity of cricket in Britain reach unimaginable heights as millions tuned in to watch the historic matches.

And batter Kevin Pietersen - who famously celebrated the victory by getting incredibly drunk - admitted: 'I'll remember a lot more of this that I did of the bus tour.'

After the investiture, the queen told the players how much anxiety the nail-biting series caused her.

Bowler Mathew Hoggard said: 'She was saying that it was nice to finally beat the Australians.'

The England squad fly out for their tour of India at the weekend, where they are due to play the first of three Test matches in Nagpur on March 1st.

Seven one-day matches have also been organised with the first taking place in Delhi on March 28th and the last being staged in Indore on April 15th.

Meanwhile, England's women's team will also met the queen yesterday and were similarly rewarded for their own Ashes triumph in August.

Skipper Clare Connor, who inspired the ladies to their first Ashes victory over Australia in more than 40 years, collected an OBE.

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