Ashes T1 Day 5: England Complete A Houdini, Draw With Australia

There is perhaps no better way to describe it than state that England had indeed pulled off the unlikely and posed the unthinkable solution that saw Australia gritting their teeth in frustration in the first Ashes Test of 2009 at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff.
The battle at Lord’s in four days’ time will see two teams on an even scale, with neither team getting the lead over the other, though Australia would argue that they have the mark on England, before the heroics came out of the closet.

Paul Collingwood held the innings together even when Kevin Pietersen departed early in the day and when Stuart Broad disappeared to leave England dangling with just two wickets left and Australia having the better part of a final session to eke them out.

At that stage, the Australian captain, Ricky Ponting would have been cocky enough to back his team to snare the two wickets and hand England their first defeat on the series. But it did not pan out the way Australia had anticipated.

James Anderson forged a staying relationship with Collingwood before Collingwood succumbed to Peter Siddle for seventy-four. At that stage, England still had to bat out close to twelve overs, even more if Australia improved on their over rate which they did.

England’s fate hanged precariously in the hands of Anderson and Panesar. But the two bowlers, to their credit, showed a great deal of gumption to keep out the tricky deliveries, to leave what did not bother them and send the bad ones packing to the boundary as Anderson did a couple of times to Siddle to allow England to overhaul the deficit and get into the single digit lead but more importantly to ensure that the two overs between change of innings would not be possible within the time frame.

But being bowled all out was still a distinct possibility. And the duo batted as though they life depended it, well, the series did.

When the mandatory overs were up, there was still time left on the clock. And the crowd that had slowly arisen through the day and woke up when they realized that England needed the support, let out their lungs, egged on the players and ensured that when the clock ticked past 6.40 pm at the Glamorgan home, England had successfully drawn the Test with a wicket to spare.