The final two hours of the Canberra Test will be replayed again and again. The dying hours of the fourth day, players on both teams losing their nerve and then finding it again. The way the match swung back and forth, from England can’t win it, to England can’t fail to win it, to the last passage where the upper hand changed by the over, by the delivery. Exhaustion, confusion, moments of supreme skill, experienced players having their poise desert them, inexperienced players forging on with the boldness of the young. In the breathless moment after it was done, no winner, two winners, and a point at which winning didn’t matter at all.
Had Australia taken the 10th wicket with the final margin of 11 remaining, only two women’s Test wins would have been closer. Had England scored the 12 they needed, it would have been the first Test decided by one wicket. There has never been a match drawn in the fourth innings with so few runs between the teams. New Zealand in Auckland in 1957 and England in Hyderabad in 1995 are the only other teams to draw a match nine wickets down. None of those other close finishes reached millions of people on TV and online. For all of those reasons and others besides, the ending at Manuka Oval is special.
