Andy Caddick stirred from his torpor, stretched and bowled his side back into the second Test at a time when all but the most unhinged English optimist would have deemed the match beyond redemption.
Thirteen overs on the reel, each and every one packed with snarling, animal aggression brought him five prime West Indian wickets for 16, all wickets coming for seven runs in a one ball fewer than 10 of the overs.
Caddick's marvellous effort and similar responses from Darren Gough and Dominic Cork saw the West Indies, in their second innings, humbled in a fraction over two hours and inside 27 overs for just 54, the lowest score they have ever made against England and only two more than their lowest ever in Tests, the 51 made against Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie in Port of Spain fifteen months ago.
Only Ridley Jacobs, with 12, reached double figures yesterday. It left England eight overs to negotiate in pursuit of 188 to complete what would be an astounding win. Mike Atherton and Mark Ramprakash duly negotiated seven balls before the light closed in and a remarkable day that had seen 21 wickets fall came to a conclusion.
Already, Sherwin Campbell's 82 and Wavell Hinds' 59 made before tea on the first day, may prove to be the decisive innings of the match with no one else since reaching 30. Indeed apart from Nick Knight, who made 34 in the second innings at Edgbaston, no England batsman has reached even that in three innings this series.
Knight, should he bat today, will do so encumbered by a right index finger damaged when attempting to catch a screamer of a catch at third slip off Gough. Earlier, West Indies bowlers may well have felt they had done enough with the ball to put the game beyond reach.
At the outset, Ambrose was irresistible, probing, giving nothing away, and making inroads as Ramprakash, Michael Vaughan and Graeme Hick were drawn into error, the latter bowled leaden footed after a calculated assault on Rose's opening over that brought him four boundaries when runs were like gold dust.
Untypically too, Atherton was drawn into some inept bat-hanging at Walsh and was caught at the wicket. Hick's riposte and a later partnership of 35 between Stewart (28) and Craig White (25) provided the only respite from the torture.
Walsh and Ambrose finished with four wickets apiece, and if Ambrose deserved more then his superb partner conceded little until Gough, premeditating, swung him lustily over the square leg fence.
The last-wicket stand Gough shared with a remarkably composed and organised Matthew Hoggard was just sufficient in the circumstances to come into the irritating category.
