The England cricket team finally did something to expunge the overburdening memory of the turnaround at Headingley in 1981 -- by achieving a victory measuring almost as much on the Richter Scale.
Convinced of their invulnerability, Australia set England a mere 315 for victory. It seemed like just another insult, but this was the one that finally got the bully's face slapped.
This victory will not alter the destination of the Ashes but it transforms the mood of the summer and, for 48 hours at least (the final Test starts at The Oval on Thursday), the mood of English cricket.
It will transform for ever the reputation of Mark Butcher, uncertain of his place yesterday morning, who scored 173 not out. It was an innings fit for him to earn a plinth in the fairly empty pantheon of great modern English centuries against Australia, perhaps behind only Derek Randall in the Centenary Test at Melbourne in 1976-77 and Ian Botham, here and at Old Trafford, in 1981.
England won the fourth Test by six wickets, with 19.4 overs to go, ending their terror of being whitewashed by Australia for the first time since they faced Warwick Armstrong's team 80 years ago. But it was the style and confidence of their performance that was so compelling: the seven-stone weaklings played like giants. Butcher is 29 on Thursday and has spent his career like dozens of other recent English Test batsmen, more out the team than in, more winned against than winning.
When his innings was in its pomp yesterday, he looked like Brian Lara in full cry. Nearly all his 24 boundaries came off the back foot, flashed in an arc between third man and cover. On a normal day, he would have thinned one of them into the slips cordon. It was not a normal day.
Even lunch was different. Butcher said later: "It was fantastic, a wonderful feeling out there."
His concentration was such that he declined anything to eat during the lunch break. "I just sat in the shower and had a coffee and couple of cigarettes," he revealed.
While Butcher's shares have gone sky-high, Adam Gilchrist suddenly looks less of a blue-chip certainty to captain Australia. It is rare enough for any Test to be won against a declaration unless one captain is in the pay of the bookmakers.
It has happened only once before in Ashes Tests: when Australia were famously set 404 on this ground in 1948. England have only once made more to win a Test: 332 at Melbourne in 1928-29. Australian captains do not normally make this kind of mistake though Gilchrist, in his charming, cheery way, did make it clear that the other players had supported the declaration.
He is in good company when it comes to losing Tests that do not matter all that much. This was England's sixth win over Australia since the wind started to blow so fiercely from the south in 1989; all but one of the six (Edgbaston 1997) have come with the Ashes already decided.
But there was no hint that Australia purposely took their foot off the accelerator, and nothing about the day felt second-rate. There is an improbable recent trend that on the rare occasions when Tests in England last until the final day, a big crowd turns up. And Headingley yesterday was almost full. It as a different kind of crowd, too: younger, more mixed, more interested.
Many of those who book in advance for Test cricket come primarily for a day on the booze. They came, spur of the moment, because they wanted to see the game. If there was any 11am expectation (unlikely - England were backable at 16-1) it would have evaporated at 11.02. Glenn McGrath resumed the over uncompleted on Sunday night; Mike Atherton pulled the first ball of the day for four, blocked the next, then gloved the third to Gilchrist.
He departed, for perhaps the antepenultimate time, and the 18th time to McGrath, with an enigmatic Athertonian smile: good ball; bit of a shame; only a game.
Marcus Trescothick was caught at about ninth slip, driving, seven overs later, and the familiar procession seemed in prospect. But then Nasser Hussain joined Butcher. At first Hussain was the more impressive of the two: he has not looked this good in two years. Butcher's strokes were flashy, even streaky. But then the great left-handers can appear to be taking chances even when the ball is going smack off the middle.
Australia had their moments, as did the pitch: one ball from Jason Gillespie took off and flew away for four byes.
After lunch, the Aussies shifted up a gear and Brett Lee started raining down 90mph bouncers. Hussain got bogged down; Butcher never did.
He brought up the 150 with two amazing square-carves of McGrath and from then on faltered only when he tried to repeat his first-innings trick and run himself out, this time on 97.
They put on 181 before Hussain was caught behind, maybe unjustly. The other Surrey Mark, Ramprakash, came in and saw it through almost to the end. Butcher's strokeplay grew ever more extravagant, Australia ever more ragged and bewildered. One four off Gillespie went through Damien Martyn's legs; the bowler just stood there, scratching his head.
The end came too quickly for Australia even to think of their last card: the new ball. One amazing day. One new-found hero. Savour it until Thursday at least.
