For the third
straight Test, two cricket teams, officials and fans around the world
were put through another epic final-day Ashes arm wrestle as England barely held its nerve to win the
Fourth Test.

That it did so
with just three wickets to spare doesn’t even
begin to tell the story of how the cricket world has once again seen a most
remarkable episode in what is now surely the greatest Test series in cricket
history. In the UK – all the talk is of this being the greatest sporting
contest in England since the 1966 World Cup was famously won by the host nation, and
who could possibly disagree?

After enforcing the follow on, Australia’s second innings resumed on
the fourth day in Nottingham at 4-222, still 37 runs behind England’s
first innings total of 477. And just as they did at Old Trafford in the
previous Test, our besieged batsmen rallied again with another seat of
their pants rearguard fightback to set England a seemingly easy yet
hopefully bothersome 129 for victory. And sure enough this third
straight nail-biter which I think was actually at the death superior in
all its theatre and the greatness of cricket being played, particularly
from a storming Shane Warne and Brett Lee, had all the eerie hallmarks
of that famous Headingley turning of the tables Test of 1981, when
Australia then chasing just 130 disintegrated for 111.

Make no mistake, this comeback by the Aussies was almost as good as
that famous England victory, as they tantalizingly fell just three
precious wickets short of mirroring that unrepeatable slice of Ashes
history. Warne bowled boldly to finish with 4-31 including a first ball
wicket, and Lee produced some absolute rip snorters – but none better
than his Flintoff bowled “special” to finish with three – along
with the fastest ball of the series at 96mph.

Considering we
had the Poms’ tottering at 4-57 (that later became a heart-stopping 7-116) it
was no exaggeration to suggest a gripped nation counted down every one of those
runs to victory, particularly towards the finish with each addition cheered to
the limit. Safety, if not sanity, finally
prevailed as the whole country went into delirium that yet another unforgettable
Australian fight-back had this time been thwarted, with the Ashes now most
likely only a Test away from home ownership.

If Shakespeare
was alive today he would be writing a work called “All’s Well That Ends Well” or
“A Mid-Summer’s Day Dream” – the story of a fight for an ancestral heirloom. Sir Freddie Flintoff leads from the front to
heroically resist the intrigues of the wayward dark prince Warne and his
swarthy henchmen, who battle and contrive to keep Sir Freddie and his loyal
kingdom from recovering the precious vessel!

This “as it
happened” timeline to the final day at BBC Sport provides a telling summary of how this
Fourth Test climax
unfolded to a disbelieving cricket world.
And some early comment from the British press:

“The
England cricket team have set out to outdo Tim Henman as a cause of
national neurosis. One unbearable climax has followed another as
England have repeatedly outplayed Australia and have repeatedly found
it hard, if not impossible, to make the killing stroke. The finger
freezes on the trigger, the hand on the hilt of the knife. England
simply cannot believe in their own superiority over the old enemy.” Simon Barnes in The Times

“It is not simply the fact that by trouncing its old rival, this triumph
brought the possibility of winning the Ashes at the fourth, final Test
at the Oval within unbearably close reach. It was also the sight of the
raw joy gripping the faces of the thousands of spectators when England
took its final two runs, and which was clearly a reflection of the
feelings of the millions of others watching the match at home on
television.” The Independent

And looking ahead to the fifth and deciding Test: “London, a city much
haunted by death this summer, is about to stage a great celebration of
life. Down
at the Oval, in an especially multi-racial part of a tense metropolis,
the capital will generate the strongest surge of excitement and
expectation this side of the 2012 Olympics. There will be a five-day
hole in the English economy, an epidemic of absenteeism, a flooding
back to the sport that dominated our childhood summers before football
rolled its tanks on to the village green and the local rec.” Paul Hayward in The Daily Telegraph