CRICKET/test match:  Onward to Headingley. No side can approach this most unpredictable of Test grounds without trepidation, but England have at least silenced the sounds of revolution in the Ridings after completing a rousing third Test win yesterday to level the series against South Africa at 1-1 with two matches to play.

A week ago English cricket was a land of treachery and recriminations. After England had been outplayed in the first two Tests, defeat at Nottingham would have left the new captain, Michael Vaughan, blinking at another damaging period of instability and the coach, Duncan Fletcher, sweating on surviving beyond the summer.

Fifteen minutes before lunch yesterday the land of discontent offered up milk and honey. England had completed a 70-run victory that had been tantalisingly within range from tea on the first day, and James Kirtley had rustled four of the last five wickets to finish with six for 34 and a man-of-the-match award on his debut.

The coterie of Yorkshire elder statesman who had led the outcry after Lord's - Geoffrey Boycott, Raymond Illingworth, Brian Close, even Michael Parkinson - had found their thunder stolen. If they are at Headingley on Thursday, they may even look on in admiration.

Vaughan, only two Tests into the job, can now tread more assertively on to his home turf. "It was crucial we got those five wickets to stay in the series," he said. "If anything, the pressure is on even more now, and you never know what will happen at Headingley, but it should be a result wicket. It's tended to do a lot over the last few years.

"We got the best of the conditions here. With a bit of moisture in the wicket some people thought we might have had a bit of a bowl. But 445 in the first innings on any Test wicket is a good total."

Graeme Smith's South Africa barely missed Jacques Kallis in the first two Tests, but covering for Shaun Pollock's absence at Headingley, while he flies home for the birth of his first child, will test their resilience to the utmost. "England won the game on day one and I thought we showed a lot of character to take the game into the fifth day," Smith said. "We have to remember we have played some fantastic cricket and dominated until this Test."

There are always nagging doubts with England - victories are never a formality - but it would have been a mighty achievement for South Africa to transform their overnight 63 for five into the 202 they required for victory.

Nevertheless, South Africa's first-innings stalwarts Neil McKenzie and Mark Boucher were in situ, and the possibility that Pollock might summon something special could not be discounted.

For six overs a large fifth-day crowd, estimated at 14,000, awaited confirmation that the momentum still remained with England. That signal came from James Kirtley and, after the first roar, two more quickly followed as three South African wickets fell within 13 balls.

McKenzie, a powerful back-foot player, is not designed for a pitch where suspicious pushes forward are essential to combat the bounce.

Kirtley defeated him on the back foot with one that kept a little low, but not as low as the shooter from Andrew Flintoff that accounted for Pollock, for nought, four balls later. Andrew Hall chose counter-attack, but a wild carve at one that left him in Kirtley's next over was pouched by Marcus Trescothick.

At 81 for eight even the most pessimistic believed victory was England's. But, with Boucher's nuggety strokeplay finding staunch support from Paul Adams, the formalities were an uncomfortably long time in coming.

Vaughan turned a second time to Kirtley. He had dashed in throughout the match with boyish glee, aiming unerringly for the top of off-stump and allowing the pitch to provide natural variations.

He had immediate effect, causing Adams to chip a gentle return catch and then, in his next over, defeating Boucher's crafty resistance with a ball that nipped away.

For nearly two years Kirtley has blanked out the ceaseless gossip about the legality of his bowling action. But today he can bask in the warmth of a Test debut that makes all the hurt worthwhile.