1st Test : Day Five - The Greatest of Great Escapes : England rise from the ashes of defeat

The victor belongs to the spoils.*
The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

England 435 & 252-9 drew with Australia 674-6 declared (day five, stumps)

Yesterday was a day to tame them all. Some say that the only certainties in life are death, taxes and an English batting collapse but yesterday, somehow, against all the odds, we contravened all expectation and survived. "We are nil all," exclaimed Brocket, lost in euphoria as if we had reclaimed the Ashes themselves. And who can blame him? This is not a day for dissection. It is not a day to chastise the team for coming agonisingly close to an innings defeat. The fortitude demonstrated by the team was so unprecedented and exquisite that we must rejoice in the moment.

But, before I begin to discuss this most extraordinary series of fortunate events, I would like to offer an apologia to Mr P D Collingwood. What an innings from The Nurdler! His MBE is not in question now...

MORNING SESSION: WHERE IS THE RAIN?

The Bearded Lady, The Novice and I sat down to watch the opening session of the day with a sense of unspoken foreboding. Swalec Stadium was bathed in sunshine and Gower, grimacing with a smile as only he can, informed us that the weather forecast remained good for the rest of the day. With the wickets of the Chef and the Pup already gone, it seemed the stage was set for either the Lord or the self anointed Adonis KP to deliver us from defeat. When Hilfenhaus bowled Kevin just eighteen minutes into the session, our prospects looked bleak. Pietersen, clearly affected by the furore that greeted his dismissal to the supposedly timid Haur in our first innings, was cautious in his approach from the first ball of the morning and fatally chose to leave a ball from Benjamina thinking it was going past off-stump. Instead, his vacant off-stump was removed from the ground by a pumped-up Hilfenhaus and our demise looked cast. "Nerves and tension got to him," lamented Nass... The corridor of uncertainty had done for Pietersen and he was back in the hutch. Unable, for once, to play the Saviour.

In stepped lieutenant Colly to partner his captain and salvage some pride, at least. The pair survived until quarter to twelve but then the "cheeky-faced" Haur [Bumble - who else?] removed Strauss for seventeen and our prospects blackened even further. On a slow pitch, we were already four wickets down. The excitable Prior, not a man consonant with crisis survival, arrived at the crease and getting through until lunch unscathed looked impossible. "This could be all over by one", I muttered. Sure enough, The Teeth was removed by the increasingly rapacious Haur at 12.23, shockingly gloving the ball to Clarke at slip. If Matt had been told to be risk averse, he clearly wasn't listening. The sight of Freddie lumbering onto the pitch was not an entirely soothing one but a promising partnership with Collingwood was a possibility given their contrasting styles and temperaments. The pair survived until the break, though Fred looked as uneasy as ever at the beginning of his innings, and thoughts quickly turned to time. How long did we have to endure?

AFTERNOON SESSION : THE NURDLER TRANSFORMS INTO THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD...

"As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, "I--think--I--can, I--think--I--can."

It was announced, to universal chagrin, that the afternoon session had been extended to two and a half hours to compensate for the minutes lost to rain the previous evening. Anyone who thought Freddie and Colly could remain obdurate for that long was clearly still drunk from the night before. The Flinstone, however, looked more assured after the break and his tenacious partner at the crease was becoming ever more resolute. They batted together for almost an hour until Flintoff was dismissed by Johnson for 26, edging to Punter at second slip. We were now six down with four long hours of play still remaining. Desperation had set in. Our next batsman, Boyband, is no rabbit; he started off his career as a batsman and has already got some decent runs and both test and one day level but he offered much mitigated hope. It was unlikely that he could survive for such a lengthy period. Colly seized the inaitive and begun to rotate the strike well, eager to protect Westlife from Aussies as much as possible. This frustrated their bowlers as appeals and chances became less and less frequent.

"The Australians seem to be a little bit irritated at the moment," says Boycott. "I suspect the crowd are just starting to think that there is a chance England could save this game". But the eternal jinx of the commentator rung true and, at 15.47, the Haur struck again LBW and our Blonde bombshell scuttled back to the pavilion. The Aussies needed just three more wickets. Nevertheless, the partnership between Colly and Stu had been a useful one; it had lasted just over an hour and reaching the next session at 16.00 no longer seemed a fanciful target but a realistic one. We couldn't fully entertain the idea of surviving through until 18.30 yet. The Nurdler looked like would simply run out of partners. He reached his 50 with his latest companion, Dr Comfort, at the crease but getting through until tea was not easy for our Swann. He was pelted with bouncers by Sid to the extent that the penultimate over lasted over eight minutes as the physio had to be summoned. Who said cricket was a non violent sport? At 16.10, we had twenty minutes to regroup at last.

EVENING SESSION : MIRACLES DO HAPPEN

"It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, "I thought I could, I thought I could."

The evening session was one of those epic sporting exchanges which filters every other concern from your mind. I was so fixated on the amount of time remaining and the number of runs ticking over that I didn't think about anything else. The world outside seemed almost to stop as we blocked and nudged our way closer and closer to stolen parity.

Colly and Marcel emerged from the dressing room without a hint of urgency and set about a two-man rescue mission. It felt like they were the last men standing and our final hope of emerging with something from the match because our next two batsmen are, needless to say, very much tail-enders. The tail had wagged in our first innings but further exploits seemed a flourish too far and, Monty, of course, is a cast iron bunny. Jimmy may be the only batsman yet to record a duck in test cricket but the prospect of him facing the oz attack for some minutes was a terrifying one...

The unfashionable partnership of The Nurdler and The Chin endured for an hour and the knowledge that passing the Aussie total would deduct three overs from the remaining total seeped around the ground and into our living rooms. We were counting down over-by-over now. We had survived the new ball onslaught just after 17.00 and, with 24 overs left and 38 behind, our batsman had racked up a 50 partnership and looked in good stead. But, with just 19 overs of play left, Swann was LBW to Hilfenhaus for 31 and we were 221-8, still some runs behind their lead. As Anderson arrived at the crease, the next wicket seemed set to be the final knell in our noble endurance test. No-one believed the Montster could survive as much as an over. We were willing the Northern lads to nudge and nurdle and grind their way to safety. In short, to persevere...

Disaster seemed to strike with 12 overs to spare when Colly made his first mistake of the day and was caught by the hands of Hussler off the bowling of the Vicious one. The next wicket looked only a matter of time. There were potentially fifty minutes of play remaining, forty if we could edge ahead of their total. Monty arrived to huge cheers and set about blocking his way to personal redemption. Some rather racy running between the wickets and several off key shots ensued. This was "squeaky-bum time". But, The Turbanator and Jimmy, aided and abetted by the physio and our 12th man, excruciatingly contrived to see us through.

It was pandemonium. We had secured a most unlikely draw.

Quote of the Day: The Novice - "Do they wear a codpiece under those whites?"

Ornithological Count : a murmur of sea-gulls on the horizon - the gulls are forgiven too. They are clearly a sign of salvation as opposed to doom.

Barminess Barometer : 85% - the Army were truly imperious once again. 1 huge Hungry Hungry Hippo drinking beer, 1 noble penguin, 3 sombrero sisters, 2 rugger bugger blokes in fluorescent wigs, 1 USA football shirt, 1 yellow wigged welsh Adam Jones alike, several pitch invaders who halted the day's play for some time (geniuses, all), a troupe of super-heroes incl the first Batman of the series, 1 welsh dragon, 2 damsels in expectation of distress clad in floor-length gowns with blonde and fuchsia pink hair respectively, & the return of the miners and the umbrella hatted Aussie (not so ironic, now eh?...).

“It's not over till its over.” There's no better place to end than Yogi Beara's somewhat saccharine, yet immortal line. Yesterday's utterly illogical escape was an emblem of glorious gumption and a two-fingered salute to Reason. The unpredictability of cricket is unique and unparalleled. Here's hoping the next test at Lord's provides half as much drama as Cardiff...

*There will be no further reference to allegations of gamesmanship and a-cricketing-morality.