Tuesday 7 December 2010
Adelaide Day 5: Australia 304 all out. England win by an innings and 71 runs. AN INNINGS AND 71 RUNS!!! It's what we had all feared. At precisely 2pm, it started to rain in Adelaide like it had never rained for ten years. And I am just quoting the locals sat at the next table at the oyster bar next to PJ O'Brien's, the Barmy Army HQ (right). It's what we had all hoped. At precisely 11.20am, Graeme Swann took his fifth and final magnificent, beautiful, magical wicket to see England to victory. Let it rain! As it transpired, all Australia had to do was bat out one single session up to lunch, with six wickets in hand, in order to save this Test. Then the heavens would have opened and you could not have played cricket again for several days, let alone before the scheduled close today. Yet this task proved completely beyond them from the moment Michael Hussey played one of the worst shots of the series so far to gift England his and Australia's most valuable wicket. The beauty of it was the ball spent so long in the air and was so obviously going to be caught that all the England supporters were already on their feet and celebrating as the ball came down to rest in Jimmy Anderson's safe hands. At that moment, we knew the match was ours. Whatever the weather.
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