For the most-hyped Ashes series in a generation, and an opener that from first ball had lived up to billing, here was a fitting finale, one sainted to rank alongside Edgbaston 2005 and Headingley 2019 as the century’s most dramatic.
These players were raised on the former series but many lived the second through its core, few more painfully than Nathan Lyon, who fumbled with the match at his mercy, and Pat Cummins, whose final ball was cut away, cut away for four.
This then, was redemption, Australia’s two best bowlers in the middle refusing to lay down the bat as Ben Stokes, Headingley’s hero, at last ran out of ideas. Four years on from that agonising defeat, at 7:21pm on a warm Birmingham evening, they stood triumphant and unbeaten, a chase of 281 complete with just two tail-end wickets in hand.
Of those, 54 were still required when Lyon and Cummins combined and Australia, you felt certain, would pay for their careful pursuit. Usman Khawaja, scorer of 201 runs in the match, was destined to be a bizarre scapegoat, having clearly resolved to be there at the end and, it seemed, left too much to do in the eventuality that he was not. As it turned out, though, this was a culture clash only until the second-last, caution thrown to the wind as Cummins hit two sixes in an over off Joe Root to turn the tide.
Stokes, as ever did his best to hold it back, having dragged a rare spell from his ailing legs to end Khawaja’s second vigil of the match, then come agonisingly close to what would have been the catch of his career, a field in which the bar is set ludicrously high. If there is regret for the England skipper - and he will insist his team have no time for those - it must be in the runs left on the table by the first evening’s early declare.
This is an Australian victory that ought to be far from a knockout blow, the tourists heading to Lord’s 1-0 up but the two teams, on five gripping days’ evidence, thrillingly well-matched. England though, to regain the Ashes, must do what no one side as since Michael Vaughan’s heroes and come from behind to claim the Urn.
For Cummins, who hit the winning runs to finish unbeaten on 44, there was a sense of personal vindication, the Australian captain, in fashion so un-Australian, having consented to spend so much of these five days on the back foot. The acceptance was that on home turf and so buoyed by revolution, England were always bound to make the running.
The morning of a day five so epically poised brought forecast storms and a 2:15pm start that, if anything, merely served to ensure the hues were just right for a knife-edge climax so late in the day.
The first hour brought only 12 runs off the bat, the sole moment of excitement coming, predictably, from Stuart Broad, who bluffed nightwatchman Scott Boland with a short-ball field and rattled his stumps, the supposed bunny taking with him 20 important runs.
Excitement and tension are two different things, though, and on days like these, even with 160 of them still required, few were in doubt as to the value of each run. They were hard to come by, Stokes’s field placement canny and Australia’s few shots of intent denied leave from the ring. Root stood on the fence, conducting the crowd like an Olympic long-jumper at the top of the runway, arms flapping and hands clapping as Broad thundered in through a seven-over spell.
If pressure was to be means to a wicket then Moeen Ali’s introduction seemed to have bungled the plan, the spinner’s first three deliveries all pounced on by Travis Head to the tune of ten quick runs. Leakage, though, is factored into the Moeen bargain and two deliveries later Australia’s most aggressive batter was no more.
England’s growing desperation, though, told you Australia had edged in front. Broad tried in vain to get a frigid ball changed, holding it up to the light for the umpire’s inspection as if it were a dodgy tenner. Root urged the Hollies for more as they rumbled his name, a rare act of narcissism from a selfless player, and certainly a bold one for a man about to twirl part-time spin. In fairness, Root rose to the sound with a valiant spell, including, later, the in-form Alex Carey’s wicket caught and bowled.
Ollie Robinson, who has grown into this match like a teenager into new school shoes, again cracked the game open after tea, Green out chopping on with 89 still to get.
Then came the break glass moment, spotted by the eagle-eyed before it happened: English hopes drifting, Aussie belief building and at mid-off Stokes, at last, getting loose.
How many deliveries are left in those legs - in that knee - only he can guess, but here was a moment in which it had to be worth using up a few of them: If not now, then when?
In the end, even the glazy-eyed got forewarning, for rarely can the sight of a man handing a cap to an umpire have been met with such a noise. The first over was nothing special, a trundling effort off a half-paced run, but the second changed all complexion: Khawaja gone, game on.
It seemed ripe, as so many before it, for Stokes’s seizing but for once, in the face of Lyon and Cummins’ resilience, he was found clutching at air.
