TRY telling a Geordie that Cricket is now the country's number one sport.

You'd get a short, sharp, two-word reply: Michael Owen. No argument. No debate. Football is king. The rest follow.

And they're right. The notion that cricket is now the sport every child dreams of playing is preposterous.

The claim that children are buying England cricket shirts rather than football shirts is ridiculous.

The vision that football will be in the shadow of cricket in the next five years is laughable.

All of these idiotic claims have been made in the last month, based on a wave of euphoria surrounding the Ashes test.

The battle between the Aussies and the Poms has been memorable. I'd be the first to admit it's among my greatest sporting clashes of all-time.

We've had drama, passion, aggression and nail-biting climaxes. The series has been the epitome of all that sport represents.

The profile of the sport has risen fivefold. Children are now playing cricket in the street again. Channel 4 announced record viewing figures on Sunday.

And Freddie Flintoff is odds-on to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

But let's not get carried away.

Let's not fall for all the hogwash written by the public schoolboys of the broadsheets.

Cricket is not the number one sport in this country - and it never will be.

The sport, admittedly, is rising from the ashes (pardon the pun), after going up in flames during the Michael Atherton era.

But many people in this country - who would normally rather watch paint dry than a five-day Test - have been caught up in the jingoism surrounding the Ashes.

After all, what's better than stuffing it up the Aussies?

They're the 'here today, gone tomorrow' brigade.

They're the same crew who stayed up until 3am to watch Torville and Dean win gold. They were there when Steven Redgrave won his fifth Olympic medal. They

were there when England won the rugby union World Cup - and proclaimed that the sport was the new number one (sounds familiar).

They are also the pain in the backsides who cheer Tim Henman on at Wimbledon every year - and then never watch another game of tennis all year.

And you can bet they won't see a cricket ball bowled next summer as football's World Cup comes around.

We'll be back to empty seats at Test matches and one man and his dog at county games as the Union Jack is waved in the direction of Wayne Rooney instead of Freddie Flintoff.

Cricket will never challenge football in the nation's hearts.

In England, we're so used to failure on an international scale that we always go completely over the top when success comes our way. Is there any other reason why Kelly Holmes was made a Dame after winning a couple of gold medals? We love to build up heroes, and we're just as quick to knock them down.

The fifth and deciding Test at the Oval should be spectacular - and we should enjoy every second of it.

Let's pray for an England victory, and we can all sit back and enjoy the winter of football. Because cricket will never reach these heights again.