Two wickets in an over, two runs at the end

Australia needed 282 to win the second Test at Edgbaston. They had lost the first at Lord's by 239 runs and had not lost an Ashes series since 1987. England had not beaten them in sixteen years.

Australia had also chosen to field first at Edgbaston, and had done it without Glenn McGrath, who was not in the eleven. England made 407 in a single day at better than five an over.

Chasing 282 in the fourth innings, Australia reached 47 without loss. Andrew Flintoff came on to bowl the thirteenth over.

Six balls

Justin Langer was bowled by the second delivery, playing inside the line. Ricky Ponting came in. He survived three balls. He edged the last of the over to Geraint Jones.

Two of the best batters of the era, in six deliveries, with the score on 47 and 48. Australia never got the initiative back. They were 137 for seven by the third evening and closed that day on 175 for eight.

Full scorecard: England v Australia, 2nd Test, Edgbaston, 4–7 August 2005 →

The last wicket

They should have lost then. Shane Warne made 42 and was out hit wicket, treading on his own stumps with 62 still needed. Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz then added 59 in 12.2 overs against a field with every man in catching positions, in front of a crowd that had stopped being able to watch.

Three runs were needed when Steve Harmison bounced one into Kasprowicz's glove and Jones dived forward to catch it. England won by two runs, the narrowest margin in the history of Ashes cricket.

What Warne nearly did

England were 31 for four in their second innings and Shane Warne took six for 46 from 23.1 overs. Only Flintoff, who made 73 of England’s 182, kept the target above two hundred at all.

So there is a version of this Test in which the decisive spell is Warne’s, and it is not a weak version. He took ten wickets in the match and finished on the losing side by two runs.

The case that the over decided it

Langer and Ponting made 28 and 0. Australia's remaining specialist batters made 31, 28, 30, 16 and 1 between them. A chase of 282 with those two set is a different match, and the eventual margin was two runs.

The case against

England conceded 40 extras in that innings: 13 byes, 8 leg byes, 18 no-balls and a wide. Flintoff alone bowled 13 no-balls.

England won by two having given Australia forty. Turn any single one of those no-balls into a legal delivery and the arithmetic of the last hour changes; turn two of them, and England lose the Test that turned the series. The over that is remembered as decisive was bowled by the man who also gave away twenty times the winning margin in the same innings, and nobody has ever held the two facts in the same sentence.

The wicket that ended it

Michael Kasprowicz was caught behind off Steve Harmison with three needed. The replays show the ball hitting his glove while the hand was off the bat handle, which under the Laws is not out.

So the Test that turned the series was won on a dismissal that should not have been given, after an over that may or may not have decided it, by a side that had bowled thirteen no-balls from one end. None of that is in dispute. All of it is on the same card.

What would settle it

Nothing. The counterfactual is unrunnable and both readings sit on the same card. Flintoff was named player of the match for 68, 3 for 52, 73 and 4 for 79, and the award is not in dispute.

England won the series 2–1 and the summer became the one every English cricketer of that generation talks about. The over is on every highlight reel ever cut of it. The no-ball column is a set of numbers nobody has replayed once.

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No. 4 in The Over That Turned It, a series of 4.

TomorrowTwo balls at Melbourne