Clarke picks the wrong man

By engineering the run-out of Peter Forrest after a mix-up with Matthew Wade, England toyed sufficiently with the mind of Australia's wicketkeeper to take his wicket two balls later. Forrest was distraught at losing his wicket for a third low score in as many innings in the series, ending with an unsightly 15 runs from 45 balls faced. Wade was clearly ruffled by the loss of his partner, and was not long in wandering aimlessly down the wicket to James Tredwell and being stumped.

Michael Clarke is commonly a shrewd judge of a run, but on a frazzled evening at the end of a difficult tour, his command of angles and fielders evaded him for a critical instant. Pushing a delivery into the offside, he scampered away in search of a single, only to realise in mid-stride that Eoin Morgan had all too much time to swoop on the ball and hurl it at the stumps. Clarke was a long way short and kept running back to the dressing room.

The arrival of rain in the sixth over of England's chase had the umpires first conferring, then electing to stay on, then departing, with Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook leading the way off. Clarke's Australians were rather more stubborn in accepting the loss of time and overs, and stayed rooted in their fielding positions until the covers were all but on the pitch.

England needed four runs to win when Morgan struck what appeared to all to be the winning hit, the ball sailing high over Clint McKay's head and down towards the long-on fence. However Morgan's bat had imparted significant spin on the ball, which proceeded to pitch and stop suddenly on the outfield, limiting the scoring to three and extending the match by one more ball.