Cricket/Ashes series: What should have been a cakewalk for England was transformed yesterday into the most nail-biting Ashes contest perhaps since George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes famously "got them in singles" to win by a single wicket at The Oval 103 years ago.

From 220 for nine at one stage, in pursuit of 282 to win, only three runs were required by Australia when Steve Harmison dredged up one more bouncer from a game of many to the last man, Michael Kasprowicz. The batsman flinched and raised his hands to protect himself, the ball looped from his bottom hand and down the leg-side, where England's wicketkeeper Geraint Jones, who had grassed a similar chance during a hapless display in the first Test at Lord's, plunged forwards and came up clutching in triumph the winning catch.

While the team and the whole exuberant crowd celebrated, England's colossus Andy Flintoff made a bee line to salute the Australian fast bowler Brett Lee, non-striker, who, battered and bruised, had made 43 of the bravest runs imaginable and had hauled his side to the brink of victory.

Chivalry, it seems is not dead.

The series now is all square, the insipid surrender of the first Test a distant memory, and everything is now to play for over the final three matches at Old Trafford, starting on Thursday, Trent Bridge and The Oval.

It is only the second time since Australia regained the Ashes in 1989 that England have won a match with them still at stake.

If the momentum is with them now, however, Australia will take comfort from their comeback in this match and from the fact that the next Test is to be played on a ground that is England's least successful and which promises to provide even more help for Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill, should they decide to play him as well.

If England are not very careful, what has been taken with one hand might be given straight back with the other.

Flintoff has been waiting eight years for a crack at Australia and is making up for lost time. This was an immense match for him, one of the finest all-round performances, given the level of opposition, that has ever been produced for England.

With the bat he made 68 and 73, the latter under the handicap of a strained shoulder necessitating a pain-killing injection.

No one, not even the mighty Ian Botham with whom he still draws comparison, has hit more than his nine sixes in an Ashes Test.

His bowling has been thunderous, with seven wickets. Four of them were in the space of nine balls as he ended the Australian first innings and then, just as the openers were setting the foundations for the chase, he came on to bowl Justin Langer and snare Ricky Ponting with the most devastating over he has delivered.

When Adam Gilchrist, the man who can turn a game in a session, chipped a catch from Ashley Giles to mid-on, it was Flintoff who pouched it and drop-kicked the ball into the stratosphere.

On Saturday afternoon, Australia, under the hammer for most of the game, had set out on an epic journey to make more runs than any Test side had scored in a fourth innings at Edgbaston, the issue settled, so it seemed, by Harmison's inspirational slower ball to bowl Michael Clarke as the day was in its last gasp. At 175 for eight the game was a dead duck, there for the taking.

So more than 17,000 people shoehorned into Edgbaston for the last rites and to salute an England victory. In the end they got their wish, but not for 99 minutes of heart-stopping tension that saw Australia clamber ever closer to an improbably memorable win. They needed 107 more yesterday, an objective, said Warne the night before, that, if unlikely, could not be discounted.

"Brett can bat," mused the conjuror, "and I reckon Kasper is due a few too."

Bravado? Who knows. But gradually the target was whittled away. Forty-five runs came from the ninth wicket before Warne trod on his stumps trying to flick Flintoff away to the leg-side: a bonus wicket. Flintoff cantered around in celebration like a shire horse at the county show.

Warne, though, had made 42 and shown the way. At the other end Lee was taking a pounding from Flintoff and Harmison of a kind that might, once upon a time, have created a diplomatic incident. Flintoff was brutal, totally uncompromising in pursuit of victory. Several times Lee was struck on the hand, and he may require much ice treatment if he is to be fully fit for the third Test.

Once, Flintoff, bowling faster than at any time in his life, hit him on the forearm with such ferocity that he threw down his bat as if shot, clutching his arm. The ground gasped at the prospect that he might have suffered a fracture. Each time he rose to fight on; it was an awesome display of courage in the face of the most savage bombardment that an England attack can have delivered.

Afterwards Flintoff was to pay tribute.

"I tried to bowl him out," he said, "and I tried to knock him out. I tried everything, but he just kept coming back. He can be proud of what he did. He bowled great and he batted outstandingly. He is a champion."

There were still 62 needed when Kasprowicz, no mug but no all-rounder either, joined him for the last-ditch effort. Immediately Flintoff seemed to have settled the issue as Kasprowicz hopped across his stumps and appeared to be lbw. Umpire Billy Bowden thought otherwise and Kasprowicz fought on.

Gradually the runs came, a single here, a boundary there, as Flintoff and Harmison strove to drive the batsmen back with short balls and then pin them with reverse swing. As quick as it had appeared on Saturday, though, the movement that had destroyed Australia's top order disappeared.

Michael Vaughan needed some control now and bravely he turned to Giles. The spinner sent down a brace of maiden overs while Flintoff kept up his barrage. Then, in a calculated move, Lee moved down the pitch and flogged Giles through midwicket, Kasprowicz cuffed him over mid-off and then edged him to the boundary. The momentum was with Australia, self-doubt perhaps creeping into England.

"I had seen something about the three-run win England had in Melbourne in 1982-3, when Allan Border and Jeff Thomson put on 70 for the last wicket," Vaughan was to reveal later, "and I thought that was an omen. But I didn't want it to get this close."

England looked rattled. An inside edge flew to the boundary, four leg-byes followed, no-balls accumulated. With 14 needed, Kasprowicz tried to uppercut another short ball but flipped it to third man where Simon Jones, running forward, made his ground but could not cling on as he dived.

Was that the catch that cost the match? That would have been harsh on a fellow who bowled brilliantly in the first innings.

Who would crack? Twice Lee played and missed at Flintoff, the ball evading the edge by a hair.

Harmison's first ball of what was to prove the final over was slashed to the point boundary where Vaughan had kept protection and Lee took a single. Kasprowicz kept out the next confidently. The third ball, rapid, deadly, did for him.