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http://images.thetimes.co.uk/images/trans.gifAS THIS month’s Ashes series grows closer, so have the odds on the two sides and on yesterday’s evidence it will be a rash man who makes a firm prediction about whether England or Australia will win. Good news if you’re the underdogs. Good news if you’re England. In one of the most thrilling one-day international finals, the teams tied the NatWest Series showdown in front of 24,000 spectators at Lord’s. There were no substitutes and no gimmicks and it was absolutely riveting. It is Michael Vaughan’s England side that will take greatest heart, because they looked dead and buried at 33 for five chasing 197. Going into the last three overs they still needed 28 with only two wickets left but a series of mistakes in the field allowed them to draw level. Ashley Giles and Darren Gough took them to within three of their target before England’s last pair of Giles and Steve Harmison — who had earlier bowled superbly to take three wickets — scrambled two runs off the last ball from Glenn McGrath. The game came back and kicked Australia in the teeth in several ways but the biggest irony was that England’s hero spent his formative years learning the game in Queensland. Geraint Jones walked to the crease with England five down and needing to score 164 runs against a rampant attack in bowler-friendly conditions. Jones and Paul Collingwood put on 116, Jones scoring 71 from 100 balls and hitting Jason Gillespie for two sixes. It was the first one-day international final to end in a tie and only the fourth in England’s history. |