England won a great victory on a magnificent stage here yesterday, beating Australia by 12 runs in a match that was over in three days' play and seemed like three weeks.

Asked to make only 175 to win, Australia reached 130 for three with the Waugh twins well set and appeared to have the game, and the series, sewn up before their own complacency and an astounding effort from the England pace attack saw seven wickets fall for 32 runs in a breathtaking finale.

England will now go to Sydney for the final Test, beginning on Saturday, knowing that the Ashes may have been lost but another win will square the series.

The hero was Dean Headley, a bowler occasionally profligate but as honest as the day is long - and they were long here - with a big heart and a capacity to produce destructive spells. Second-innings figures of six for 60 represent the first time he has taken five wickets in a Test innings. More specifically he took five for 26 in an unbroken spell of 10 overs, four of them in a dizzy 14 balls that broke the back of the Australian innings.

He scarcely had the energy to drag himself from the field at the end. His effort was crowned by Darren Gough, who applied the coup de grace with maximum efficiency.

The digital clock on the giant electronic screen read 7.33 when Gough's reverse-swung yorker thumped into Glenn McGrath's feet for the lbw decision to finish the match and a session that had begun with the start of the Australian innings precisely four hours and just over 46 overs earlier, probably the longest unbroken period of play in Test match history.

It was brought about by an anomaly in the new International Cricket Council ruling that legislates for time to be made up if play is lost to inclement weather.

England required only 10 deliveries as, in quick succession, Headley had Nicholson caught at the wicket and Gough yorked Stuart MacGill and McGrath.

The game had seemed beyond England from the time Steve Waugh's and MacGill's ninth-wicket partnership on the second evening of play gave Australia a first-innings lead of 70. When England were then bowled out by tea yesterday for 244 they seemed to have even less hope.

England knew, however, that Australia have a blind spot when it comes to chasing low totals.

Australia began auspiciously and positively with a first-wicket stand of 31 in six overs between Taylor and Michael Slater. They were going to take this game by storm and Headley, who opened the bowling with Gough, was on the verge of being replaced if nothing happened. Then from nowhere Headley found a shooter that thudded into Slater's pads, so obviously that he gave himself out.

It was the spark. Five overs later Alan Mullally, who was to bowl a testing and crucially economical 10-over spell himself, got Taylor hooking to long leg, where Headley had time to contemplate the meaning of life before the ball plummeted into his hands. Next ball 41 for two ought to have become 41 for three when, with the batsmen having crossed, Justin Langer edged the ball very low to Hick's right at second slip only for the chance to elude him. McGrath was afterwards given a suspended fine of Aus$,500 (approx £1,030) for verbally abusing Mullally.

The subsequent third-wicket stand of 62 between Langer and Mark Waugh seemed to have sealed the game.

A moment of magic changed it, for Langer, pulling Mullally viciously to square leg, was astounded to see Mark Ramprakash, recalling the breathtaking effort that did for Jacques Kallis at Headingley last August, hold a catch as good as anyone has witnessed.

It was phenomenal and in Taylor's estimation fired England up. Headley had Mark Waugh caught by Hick for 43 and then, with the score on 140, had Darren Lehmann caught at the wicket, Ian Healy caught by Hick once more and Fleming leg before wicket.

Nicholson played calmly and, with the bowling tiring, Steve Waugh began to take control. His only mistake in the game proved a big one. Having decided to carry the game to its conclusion, he saw Nicholson spar and offer a catch to Hegg; then, rather than protect MacGill, he once more allowed the tailender the strike. In the first innings it had worked; in the second, with Gough running out of the fading sunlight and into the shadow of the giant stands, it failed. Waugh was left stranded.