Caught Out - Shocking Revelations of Corruption in International Cricket. Brian Radford
of pressure. Things are getting tight. It’s about who can handle the pressure.’
Both Ponting and Fletcher were eager to get back to the match. Extreme pressure was building on both sides and day four began with Clarke and Katich circumspectly taking Australia into the lead. Patience was essential if England were to regain command, and when Hoggard took Michael Clarke’s wicket before lunch, and Gilchrist’s straight after it, there were jubilant smiles all round.
Australia continued to lose wickets in rapid succession. Only Warne showed any diligent resistance, and when he went for a hard-worked 45, the end was in sight. A modest 129 was England’s target for victory. Trescothick began with typical enterprise, bludgeoning 27 runs from 22 deliveries. The Australian attack was being made to look woefully tame and ordinary.
Then, crash! England lost three wickets in a flash. Warne dismissed Trescothick (27), Vaughan for a duck, and Strauss (23), and Lee sent back Ian Bell (3). England were rocking at 57-4. The victory dream was suddenly a nightmare.
Ironically, the demand for a cool head fell on Andrew Flintoff (26) and Kevin Pietersen (23), two of the game’s most aggressive batsmen who hardly knew the meaning of patience and calmness. On this occasion they performed with maximum care and responsibility, and added an invaluable 46 together before Lee dismissed them both.
Warne then removed Geraint Jones (3), before the unlikely lads Ashley Giles (7 not out) and Hoggard (8 not out) edged England to a three wicket win and a 2-1 Ashes lead. All those who still had nails to chew, and there couldn’t have been many, anxiously waited for the final Test to begin at The Oval on 8 September.
Vaughan won the toss for the third time in the series and chose to bat, and England went to lunch at 115-3. The first day belonged exclusively to opener Strauss, who struck 129 for his second century of the series.
England were 319-7 at close of play and partisan weather-watchers were excitedly predicting heavy showers for London over the next few days, and very much hoping that they would be torrential to make it impossible for the match to continue. Giles and Harmison frustrated the Australians in the early stages of the second day before England were dismissed for 373.
Langer and Hayden responded confidently with a century partnership and surprisingly walked off immediately after tea when offered the light, even though England had decided to bring gentle Giles into the attack. The light never improved and drizzle drifted across the ground, so the Australians retreated to their hotel for the night on 112-0, still a hefty 261 runs in arrears.
Wet ground conditions limited play to just 14 overs before lunch next morning; Langer and Hayden added 45 runs, with each surviving a confident lbw appeal. Langer had just reached his 22nd Test century when Harmison finally broke the partnership, but Hayden continued to bat resolutely and he, too, completed his hundred.
Fiery Flintoff then nudged himself into the record books. Strauss caught Ponting at slip, so Flintoff had equalled Ian Botham’s 300 runs and 20 wickets in an Ashes series. Only 45.4 overs were possible during the day, and Australia again took advantage of a bad light offer and left the field early with eight wickets intact, and 96 runs behind.
Australia had reduced the deficit to 17 runs by lunch on the fourth day and were finally dismissed for 367 in mid-afternoon, still six runs short of England’s first innings score. Flintoff finished with five wickets, and Hoggard four. England had built a 40-run lead for the loss of Strauss before bad light again ended play prematurely.
Tension was high on the last morning of the series. England surely could not let the precious urn slip through their fingers at this late stage. For 40 minutes Vaughan was bold and brave and in complete command. But no one is ever really set against McGrath, a truly great medium-pace bowler, and right on time he produced two magnificent out-swingers to send back Vaughan and Bell with consecutive deliveries.
England stuttered to 133-5 at lunch and Australia were clearly scenting victory, with cricket’s most menacing duo, McGrath and Warne, already sharing four of the five wickets to fall and looking deadly dangerous.
Everything was set up for a titanic finish. Pietersen had his ‘I’m a responsible batsman’ helmet on, and evidently a rabbit’s foot, a four-leaf clover and a lump of coal tucked in his trouser pocket. How else could Australian fielders, famed for having the safest hands in world cricket, drop him three times in one session?
Of course, Pietersen said ‘thanks’ in the most effective way by tip-toeing through the minefield to his maiden Test century before he was dismissed for a memorable 158 that included 15 fours and seven sixes. Giles stubbornly stumbled to 59, and Australia were left with around 19 overs to score 341 runs – rather like trying to climb Everest in bedroom slippers. Impossible.
The situation became even more absurd when the Aussie openers almost immediately accepted the offer of bad light and walked off. Restless spectators called for umpires Koertzen and Bowden to remove the bails and pull up the stumps to declare the match over, and to end a magical series that had captivated the country and had given Test cricket an unprecedented boost.
At precisely 6.17pm the umpires laid the stumps to rest. The match was a draw and England had won the series 2-1. Those priceless, mythical Ashes were back in Britain. It was time to celebrate. For the record, Australia scored just four leg byes in their second innings, making it the only innings in Test history in which every run was an extra. Australia’s coach John Buchanan had the honour of selecting England’s player of the series and chose Andrew Flintoff, while England’s coach Duncan Fletcher named Shane Warne as his top Australian.
England’s ecstatic entourage barely had time to open the champagne before a message arrived from the Queen: ‘My warmest congratulations to you for the magnificent achievement of regaining the Ashes. Both sides can take credit for giving us all such a wonderfully exciting summer of cricket at its best.’
Similar congratulatory messages poured in from political leaders, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said: ‘By bringing the Ashes back after so long you have given cricket a huge boost and lit up the summer.’ Michael Howard showered equal praise for the Conservatives, and Charles Kennedy for the Liberal Democrats.
Even in defeat, Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard did not want to be left out, and considered the Ashes so important that he broke away from a United Nations summit in New York to say: ‘There’s natural disappointment, but it’s a situation where you give credit to the team that won.’
Euphoria swept the nation and tens of thousands of people lined the streets of London on 13 September to cheer the proud England squad and its backroom staff as they waved joyously from an open-top bus that took 90 minutes to crawl from Mansion House to Trafalgar Square, where the crowd suddenly burst into a proud rendering of ‘Jerusalem’. Close behind was another open-top bus carrying England’s equally thrilled women cricketers, who had also beaten the Aussies to complete a colossal double.
Gary Pratt, the dynamic run-out specialist, was spotted among the England players, which clearly showed how much Vaughan and his team-mates valued his controversial dismissal of Ponting that essentially helped to win that Test match, and ultimately the whole series.
Pratt said very little at the time, but four years later – and after being dumped by Durham – he finally broke his silence and said: ‘In a way what happened [in the Test match] hampered my career. All of a sudden I was renowned for my fielding, even though I felt I offered a lot more than that.
‘I had averaged 35 in One-day games for Durham, but that piece of fielding went against me because suddenly clubs didn’t look at me as a middle-order batsman. They saw me as a fielder who had done something in the Ashes. It was disappointing.
‘I was more renowned as 12th man than even someone like Paul Collingwood, who played at The Oval, but isn’t really associated with that Ashes win. That run-out was just one of those things where everything clicked. It’s still a bit of a blur. I know it was a turning point in one of the greatest series of all time. I sat down with Ponting after the game. He was great. There were no hard feelings. I even got him to sign a photo of us, and he gave me a couple of pairs of his boots