England beat Australia by six wickets
A dreamy innings of 173 not out from Mark Butcher, full of once-in-a-lifetime cuts and drives, inspired England to an historic six-wicket victory in the Headingley sunshine. Only once before, at Melbourne in 1928-29, when they made 332 for 7, have they scored more in the fourth innings to win a Test. They said England couldn't take 300-plus in a day off this Australian side. They were right: it took them just 73.2 overs.

But dry statistics fail to do justice to the batting of Butcher, who played like a master violinist treating the audience to a selection of his favourite numbers, and took the Australians apart. He even tucked into Glenn McGrath - McGrath the Indestructible - hitting him off his miserly length with a sequence of fence-rattling back-foot cuts.

It was Butcher's third-wicket partnership with Nasser Hussain, worth 179, that drove the Australians onto the back foot. Coming together at 33 for 2 after Mike Atherton had been caught behind off McGrath for 8 (8 for 1) and Marcus Trescothick caught in the gully off Jason Gillespie for 10, the pair counterattacked with vim, panache, chutzpah and any other non-Anglo-Saxon word you'd care to use.

Hussain hooked Gillespie for six, the ball was lost and the replacement seemed to behave much better than its predecessor. Both batsmen dealt in very un-English upper-cuts, exploiting Adam Gilchrist's refusal to employ a third man and the 100 partnership came up in the 24th over of the innings.

Butcher got to fifty with three off his pads off Shane Warne, and at lunch it was 118 for 2. After lunch, it got better for England. Butcher straight-drove McGrath for four, then cut him twice through point in consecutive balls in his next over. He followed that with another pair of successive fours - sumptuous cover-drive, nonchalant flick over square leg - off Brett Lee. It was heady stuff, and the crowd reeled like drunkards at a Bacchanalian orgy.

Butcher's third Test century came with another three through midwicket off Warne. It had taken him 142 balls, but the job was only half-done. Hussain then moved to fifty with a pair of audacious fours over the infield as Lee steamed in round the wicket, but a raucous stand soon ended in controversial circumstances when Hussain was given out caught behind off Gillespie down the leg side for 55. But the ball had come off his thigh pad - the latest in a string of ordinary decisions by umpire Venkat in this series. It didn't matter. Mark Ramprakash set off with a punchy off-drive for four off Lee, before Butcher moved into overdrive after tea, launching anything that offered him any width through the off side like a left-handed Gordon Greenidge.

By now the runs were overflowing, and there was some anticlimax when Ramprakash, on 32, edged Warne to first slip, where Mark Waugh claimed a catch that seemed to kiss the turf at the same time (289 for 4).

But Butcher savaged the butterflies in one murderous over against Gillespie. He worked him through mid-on for four, then cut him through Martyn's fumble at long leg for another boundary, before slashing the next delivery over point for six. Usman Afzaal's sweet drive for four made it 19 off the over.

When Butcher chopped the winning runs, the ground erupted. A run of 10 international defeats for England was over, so was the threat of a whitewash, and they can go to The Oval in their best spirits of the series. It wasn't quite Headingley `81, but after everything that has happened this summer, it felt almost as unbelievable. Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com

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