As tipping points go, the final delivery of the 2005 Edgbaston Test is arguably the most important moment in modern English cricketing history.
The ball sent down by Steve Harmison that was gloved down the legside to a diving Geraint Jones to seal a gripping two-run win was the spark that lit up a golden Ashes summer, setting England on their way to regaining the urn for the first time in 18 years.
Twenty years on, its impact is no less enduring and for the man on the receiving end of it, Australia’s Michael Kasprowicz, the memory of that glorious Sunday morning when England levelled the series 1-1 remains as vivid as ever.
Australia needed 62 more runs to chase down their target of 282 when Kasprowicz, in at No 11, joined Brett Lee at the crease.
“I remember the noise of the crowd,” Kasprowicz tells The i Paper.
“We were used to that, we’d played in India, all over the world, but the noise of that English crowd was incredible.”
Kasprowicz, seen here with Shaun Tait and Justin Langer, played 38 Tests for Australia (Photo: Getty)It was soon silenced as the last-wicket pair played on English nerves to take their partnership to 50.
Kasprowicz says: “Andrew Flintoff was bowling to Brett Lee and he bowled a ball that went down the legside, hit the footmarks and went for four byes.
“It was a no-ball too. So the target went from 14 runs to nine. Single figures.
“All of a sudden it just went quiet. From all the noise, the energy, there was nothing. I remember thinking ‘Wow. Now we can win.’”
Kasprowicz thought Lee had won it when, with four needed, his partner hit the sweetest of cover drives off Harmison.
“Brett has absolutely smoked it,” he says.
“People in Australia say they were up cheering at that point thinking we’d done it. Then all of a sudden you see it go straight to Kevin Pietersen in the deep.
“One run. I was on strike and having successfully got through short deliveries, Harmison came in and the ball I was actually given out on didn’t feel like it was halfway down the wicket. It was one of those where it just appeared all of a sudden in front of me, hence why my hands were up, out of instinct. The ball flicked off the glove and went through to Geraint.”
When the crooked finger of flamboyant Kiwi umpire Billy Bowden went up, one of the greatest Test matches in history was settled.
However, Kasprowicz remains adamant he should not have been given out, arguing his right glove was off the bat handle when the ball struck.
With the Decision Review System (DRS) still three years away, there was no recourse to technology.
Had the decision been different, Australia might have won that second Test to take a 2-0 series lead with three to play.
England’s Ashes wait would have surely gone on and the greatest series of all time would probably have been yet another one-sided Aussie cakewalk.
A few years after the end of his playing career, Kasprowicz, who now works as a business consultant in Queensland, was in the lobby of the Imperial hotel in New Delhi when a smartly-dressed Indian man approached him.
“This guy came up to me and said: ‘Thank you for single-handedly saving Test cricket,’” he adds.
“I felt very flattered and said: ‘Thank you so much, but how did I do that?’ He said: ‘If you and Brett Lee had got those runs, Australia would have won the series easily. Test cricket would be dead. So, thank you for saving Test cricket single-handedly.’
“At which stage I had to point out, that single hand he was talking about was actually off the bat at the time. It flicked my right glove on the way through, which was off the bat. If we’d had DRS, that would have been picked up and the MCC laws of cricket says that’s not out. It would have been the right result.”
Yet asked if he is now glad how it all panned out, he says: “It’s the first time I’ve been asked that.
“I think maybe yes. It was good for cricket and if we’d have won that Test it would have been forgotten. It would have just paled into all the other awesome wins by the Australian cricket team.
“And I reckon, actually, it wouldn’t have mattered. So, selfishly, I’m glad I have the experience of telling my story about being out there in the middle. It was good for world cricket. It’s kind of nice to be part of a folklore story in the Ashes.”
Andrew Flintoff consoling Brett Lee is the defining moment of the 2005 Ashes (Photo: Getty)The enduring image of that dramatic summer – Flintoff, England’s star of the 2-1 series win, consoling Lee moments after his side’s victory was sealed at Edgbaston – has also gone down in Ashes folklore.
But for Kasprowicz, the man at the other end, the seconds afterwards were a lonely place: “I was on my own. I’ve had people come up to me and say about that photo – ‘what did Andrew Flintoff say to you in that moment?’ I say: ‘It wasn’t me.’
“I was the bloke who got out and no-one came down to me. Everyone’s too busy cheering, celebrating and the rest.
“In that moment, I’m reflecting and I’m thinking, ‘could I have played that differently?’ And I’m not sure you can. Maybe I could have ducked under it, but it was just instinct.”
Kasprowicz was only playing in that second Test after Glenn McGrath ruptured ligaments in his right ankle treading on a stray ball during the warm-ups on the opening morning.
“I was actually marking the run-ups for the players,” he says.
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“I remember being down on the ground and then over my left looking and seeing McGrath fall over and then a bit of a laugh and joke. Everyone thought he was mucking around. But all of a sudden you realise he wasn’t.
“Merv Hughes, a selector at the time, came across the ground and said: ‘Congratulations, you’re playing.’ I smiled and said: ‘Thank God I made the right decision last night. I got home before 3am so I’ll be fine to play.’ I was only joking.”
Memories of Edgbaston 2005 came flooding back during England’s nervy 22-run victory against India at Lord’s last week.
“I missed that,” Kasprowicz admits. “But I love the fact it’s referred to. As a moment in time, it meant so much to people. The irony of all that is, despite being responsible for the greatest Test of all time, what do you reckon was my reward? I got dropped.”
As for this winter’s Ashes in Australia, Kasprowicz is adamant England will be hammered if they attempt to Bazball their way to victory.
“As far as Australia’s concerned with England coming here, they won’t be worried at all,” he says.
“I’m not sure Bazball is still a thing, is it? As soon as it came out I said to a few other guys, it’s either hero or bust.
“To play like that not so much disrespects Test cricket but if England come out to Australia and try to do Bazball there’s no way it’ll work. You’ll have good days but overall it won’t work. In the words of the great Glenn McGrath, it’ll be 5-0.”
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