What a difference Alan Mullally's batting can make. Mullally's merry, slogged 16 at Melbourne in 1998-99 was crucial to England's 12-run victory, and meant that they went to the final Test at Sydney with the score 1-2 instead of 0-3. From nowhere, England had a chance of drawing their first Ashes series since 1972. And they might just have got away with it were it not for that pesky third umpire Simon Taufel. The first day started with Alec Stewart losing his fifth toss of the series, the first Ashes coinwash since 1953, and ended with Darren Gough taking England's first Ashes hat-trick since 1899; he finished the job with a couple of magnificent yorkers to Stuart MacGill and Colin Miller.

Already the pitch was turning considerably, and Australia had just the horses for the course: MacGill (12 for 127 in the match), Miller and some chap called Shane Warne. Warne's sense of theatre was still intact: in his first Test for a year, he pinned Mark Butcher lbw with his fourth ball as Australia led by 102 runs on first innings.

England weren't done however, and with Dean Headley producing another heroic display, only two Australians made it into double figures in the second innings. Mark Waugh made 24 … and Michael Slater 123. It was a monstrous innings - nobody since Charles Bannerman, in the first Test of them all, has scored more than Slater's 66.84% of his side's innings - but there was a catch.

On 35, and with Australia 60 for 2, Slater was beaten by a direct hit from Headley. As the decision went to the third umpire, Slater whipped his gloves off in expectation of the red light. But with the cameras at a funny angle and Peter Such's backside obscuring his view at an inopportune moment, Taufel had his eyes on a different button …

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