Australians awoke on Monday to the queasy feeling that cricket’s Ashes may be headed back to England after a gut-wrenching two-run defeat in the second Test to square the five-match series.
Australians sat on their edge of the seats on Sunday evening watching their team’s compelling tail-end fightback which almost torpedoed England’s hopes of recovering from their resounding defeat in the opening Lord’s Test.
In the closest victory in 308 Tests spanning 128 years between the old rivals, England breathed new life into the series and fuelled hopes that 16 years of Ashes torment could end in the coming weeks.
Australians, by nature, take sporting defeats hard. But even though the batting heroics of Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz cruelly left their team two runs short of a miraculous win, there was a general consensus that England deserved their victory and gave the game a massive fillip.
”Madness. Sheer madness. But probably the greatest fillip Test cricket has had in 20 years,” the Daily Telegraph said on Monday.
”Even as Australia despaired it was hard not to feel good about what the result did for the game, tossing up a finish that will be remembered as long as the game is played.”
The win was only England’s first since the opening match of the 1997 series and kept alive their dream of ending Australia’s run of eight straight series wins since 1989.
The Australian media praised the contribution of man-of-the-match Andrew Flintoff, who took seven wickets, made vital scores of 68 and 73 and shared in a pivotal last-wicket second innings stand of 51 with Simon Jones.
”Flintoff proved himself the new Ian Botham when he came to the crease at 5-72 but he was the last man out for 73, having thrashed four sixes — giving him an Ashes record of nine for the match — and six fours,” the Daily Telegraph said.
”England owed much to a gigantic contribution from Andrew Flintoff, who set about the Australians with pace, power and bravado. He took the contest by the scruff of the neck, won it from the front by imposing himself upon it,” Peter Roebuck wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald.
Ricky Ponting’s decision to send England into bat after winning the toss was critical and one that may be remembered for the rest of his cricket career, the Australian press said.
”Ricky Ponting has never faced pressure like the pressure that will stalk his every move on this Ashes tour,” the Daily Telegraph‘s Robert Craddock wrote.
”And how he handles it could be the decisive factor in the destination of the series.
”Ponting is probably the most mentally tough cricketer in Australia and he will need all his renowned strength to cope with the fallout of his failed gamble to send England into bat in the second Test.”
Australia has now been on the losing end of the three closest Test finishes when chasing fourth innings totals.
The only one-run margin came during the 1993 Test against the West Indies at Adelaide Oval when Craig McDermott was dismissed in similarly heartbreaking circumstances to Kasprowicz.
And the previously most memorable Ashes Test finish was the 1982-83 match at the MCG when Allan Border and Jeff Thomson staged a last-wicket stand on the final morning to carry Australia to within four runs of victory.
The Australian said the Australian team’s gritty rearguard effort camouflaged concerns about the way Ponting’s team approached the second Test.
Its correspondent Andrew Ramsay observed: ”The lack of value placed on their wickets by a number of Australian batsmen smacked of a team whose steely self-belief has slowly evolved into a sense of invincibility which becomes more of a weakness than a strength when the opposition is equally competent.”
With pace spearhead Glenn McGrath likely to be out until the fourth Test as he recovers from an injured ankle, press speculation is mounting that Stuart MacGill may partner Shane Warne in a twin spin assault on an anticipated ”turning” Old Trafford pitch in this week’s third Test. – Sapa-AFP