England triumphant as series is squared

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It was said that England had to win the toss if they wanted to win the match and level the series. They lost the toss but won the match by nine wickets. It has been said many times that England would struggle to bowl South Africa out twice on a flat pitch. It was a very flat pitch, yet the English bowlers took all 20 wickets to finish an enthralling series all-square.

It was gripping stuff, keeping the large, fiercely patriotic crowd on the edge of their seats, but at 2.06pm, Marcus Trescothick hit the winning runs to send Alec Stewart happily into retirement on a wave of emotion and England off on their winter travels with a spring in their step.

Once the morning dawned clear and bright and they could stop fretting about the weather, England could turn their attention towards the pressing task of splitting the seventh wicket partnership had was burgeoning between Mark Boucher and Shaun Pollock. This pair had stopped the rot on the fourth evening but could not withstand the fresh England bowlers on the fifth morning.

Before four overs had been completed, Martin Bicknell had given Boucher two in-swingers and followed it up with a perfect out-swinger that the batsman edged to Stewart. Next ball, Andrew Hall made a complete mess of dealing with a short ball on the leg side and chipped a simple catch to Ed Smith at mid-wicket. Paul Adams kept out the hat-trick ball.

Then it was Stephen Harmison's turn. Bowling as well as he has ever done for England, he induced Pollock to direct a short, lifting ball straight to Graham Thorpe at backward point. Within an hour of the start of play, Harmison wrapped it all up as Makhaya Ntini went to pull and lobbed a catch that Smith simply flew towards and clutched in an outstretched left hand. South Africa all out for 229 and England's target was 110 for a momentous victory.

South Africa desperately needed an early breakthrough if they were to put pressure on England, and in just the second over they could have had one when Marcus Trescothick edged Ntini into the slips where Hall dived in front of Jaques Kallis - and dropped it.

Slowly, Vaughan and Trescothick picked off the required runs to go in for lunch in good shape. The pair received a rousing reception after the break, but the captain's stay in the middle was a short one. He flashed at a wide ball from Kallis and edged to Boucher. It somehow summed up his summer, but it meant he could sit back and watch Trescothick go to another fifty and Mark Butcher show what a good Test batsman he has become.

There were four more runs needed when Kallis bowled outside Trescothick's off stump. The batsman drove and edged, the ball went over slip and down to the third man boundary and pandemonium broke out. What might it be like if England win the Ashes on this ground in 2005? Perhaps the epic comeback in this match and this series has gone some way to realising that ambition.