Trent Bridge has always been second only to Lord's amongst English grounds for sheer cricket atmosphere and the magnificent Radcliffe Road Stand, opened yesterday by Sir Garfield Sobers, has enhanced its status at a timely moment.
As Alec Stewart said with his usual engaging mixture of Admiral Nelson and Glenn Hoddle: ``English cricket needs a good Test win. You can prepare well and talk about it but it is in the middle that it counts.'' England are one down with two to play. A year ago they reached a similar point of no return here against Australia, bowled and batted poorly and lost the Ashes.
With three of the South Africans in the top five of the national batting averages, five in the top 15 and odd man out, Hansie Cronje, not exactly out of form after making 195 in his last innings, the challenge is no less formidable now from a side whose theoretical weakness is in top order batting.
The advent, however, of Andrew Flintoff and the return of Mark Butcher, Graeme Hick and Ian Salisbury gives Stewart hope that the first innings' failures which have plagued England in recent times can be purged. Nine times in 14 innings England have been bowled out for less than 200 and, even allowing for pitches a good deal less reliable than this one promises to be, that is a dreadful record.
A match England have to win if they are to retain their hope of winning a five-match rubber for the first time in 15 series is about to be played at a sporting centre whose facilities are vastly better than they were when South Africa won here by 94 runs on their last visit 33 years ago. Shaun Pollock's father, Peter, took 10 for 87 and his uncle, Graeme, made 125 out of 160 in two hours and 20 minutes. It is hard to imagine the red-headed all-rounder leaving Nottingham on Monday without having done something memorable.
It is a ground for great deeds by great players. Sobers recalled with delight his first visit to Trent Bridge with the West Indies in 1957 and happy hours batting in the middle on Nottinghamshire's behalf. Bowlers have had their days here too - Sobers, Sir Richard Hadlee and Clive Rice, who is here, amongst them - and Ian Botham took five wickets in his first Test in 1977. Shortly before the pitch had its final cut yesterday there was sufficient green grass evenly distributed over its flat surface for Robert Croft to be sent to Colwyn Bay in search of a pitch which might help finger spinners.
A choice will therefore be made for the last two places today between Angus Fraser, Alan Mullally and Flintoff, the 20-year-old hope of the moment. It is not just those who are praying for a cricketing Michael Owen or Justin Rose who hope that Flintoff will play, as the fourth seamer and No 7 batsman.
England would have a better balance and greater depth if he does, with six specialist batsmen, two other fast bowlers and a leg-spinner, plus two who can bowl off-breaks in Mark Ramprakash, promoted to five, and Hick who returns to the side at No 6 on the ground where he made a notable hundred against the West Indies in 1995. Nor should Flintoff be discarded after a single game, as Ben Hollioake was following his first cap here a year ago.
South Africa make one enforced change, Pollock returning for Lance Klusener. Pollock's suspect thigh was successfully tested against Derbyshire and his return strengthens the eleven who could not quite finish the job after making England follow on for the second match in succession at Old Trafford. With the fast improving Makhaya Ntini in Klusener's place, the South African batting order is not quite so impossibly long.
Donald, with 50 wickets from his 11 Tests against England and 223 from his 45 in all, remains the great threat, especially in harness with Pollock. Especially, too, if South Africa should win the toss when the weather may, for the only time in the game, enhance the swing which has become more characteristic of Trent Bridge since the mighty new stand blocked the breezes which once blew over from the River Trent.
The England side, with at least four changes - five if Mullally is preferred to Angus Fraser in the interests of variety - must be less likely to win, but in Ian Salisbury they have a means back into the series. His approach seems calmer, his googly and flipper fool most batsmen and he is continuing to give his leg-break a rip without losing control as once he did. If England have turned the series round early next week Salisbury will surely have been a significant player.
Not that any bowler is likely to have things his own way this weekend once the clouds have lifted. For all the improvement wrought by the new 4,500-seat stand, locally designed and built and incorporating modern media facilities on three floors, plus two indoor cricket halls, a gymnasium, a sports clinic, a lecture centre and bedrooms, it is the field which still matters most. This is the same verdant turf outfield and much the same square on which Hutton and Compton made hundreds in their first appearances against Australia and Stan McCabe scored his immortal 232 in the same match.
``First and foremost,'' said the Nottinghamshire committee member, Barry Paling, in introducing Sir Gary yesterday, ``the new development gives us the facility to continue with our youth development programme.''
Nottinghamshire - like the Sports Council, who have insisted that their major grants to cricket have a community purpose - have their priorities right and nothing would galvanise young cricketers more than an inspired all-round performance by England.
England (from): M A Atherton, M A Butcher, N Hussain, *+A J Stewart, M A Ramprakash, G A Hick, A Flintoff, D G Cork, I D K Salisbury, D Gough, A D Mullally, A R C Fraser.
South Africa (from): G J B Liebenberg, G Kirsten, J H Kallis, D J Cullinan, *W J Cronje, J N Rhodes, S M Pollock, +M V Boucher, M Ntini, A A Donald, P R Adams, P M Symcox.
Umpires: M J Kitchen (England) and R S Dunne (NZ).
Match Referee: A Ebrahim (Zimbabwe).