The unthinkable has happened. Ashes
cricket thriving beyond the wildest expectations of the game in 2005; a
series now poised on a knife edge at 1-1; and the kind of last man
standing cricket both teams seem ready to die for!

The Third
Test went right down to the wire in another incredible last wicket cliffhanger –
this time, Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath saw off 24 potentially game-ending balls,
after Ricky Ponting was finally dismissed for a match-saving 156 having occupied
the crease for 413 minutes and faced 275 balls. He all but lifted us over the line in a
rearguard action that must rank as his finest Test innings and one of the truly
great captain’s knocks in Ashes history.

While the
final score of 9-371 was academic in chasing 423 to win, the draw was greeted
like a win by the besieged visitors and a soul-destroying loss by the failed
assailants. Much will be said in the
next couple of days about the umpiring but that’s hardly cause for taking
anything away from yet another astonishing day of Test cricket. Also, given the nature of the riveting cricket
now being celebrated for its stirring revivalism of past Ashes
greatness, these two combative teams are delivering a longer term financial
windfall to the game in England

Just like the
previous Test at Birmingham, Old Trafford offered a now totally fixated English
public yet another astonishing “Test” of everybody’s nerves as England threw
everything at Australia until the very last ball. That England couldn’t knock us out for a
fairytale 2-1 lead seems to matter less than the fact that cricket was again the winner in
what is fast becoming the supreme event of world sport in
2005.