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Australia's captain Ricky Ponting, right, is bowled by England's Graeme Swann as wicketkeeper Matthew Prior, centre, looks on and Ravi Bopara jumps on the fourth day of the third cricket test match between England and Australia in Birmingham, England, Sunday Aug. 2, 2009. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Four years ago, Glenn McGrath sprained his ankle on a stray ball at Edgbaston, an incident that dramatically altered the course of the 2005 Ashes series. Six weeks ago, Australia had over ten overs at the England last-wicket pairing of Monty Panesar and James Anderson.
Their failure to wrap up what looked to be a certain victory came back to bite them – with interest – at the Oval overnight.
It didn’t seem possible after an abject display at Headingley, but England’s resurgence summed up the series as a whole.
Edgbaston aside, both teams had their moments. Both England and Australia dominated two Tests apiece and the difference came down to the fact that the home side won twice when they were in the ascendancy and the visitors won once.
Defeat will have been hard to stomach for Ricky Ponting and his side given their dominance of the five matches statistically, and especially so for the captain who now has two big black marks on his stellar CV.
But England won the crucial periods and, ultimately, that was the difference.
Chasing an unlikely target of over 500 at the Oval, Australia put up the expected fight, but their woeful first innings had already done the damage.
Mike Hussey did a decent imitation of a batsman saving his career. Ponting gave a glimpse, until his careless run out, of why he is the wicket opposition attacks crave the most. But that was about it.
They had left themselves too much to do on a surface not favouring fluency and, in truth, there was only one possible outcome.
In the postmortem, Australia will point to their badly under par 160 in their first go at the crease as where the game was lost, but other factors contributed heavily.
The first was the toss. The pitch was always going to be prepared with a result in mind whatever the powers that be said, and that gave the flip of the coin added importance.
That it was bone dry rather than overly grassy was an obvious ploy to use because it adds to the threat of all kinds of bowling. With that in mind, why on earth was Nathan Hauritz left on the sidelines?
Whether his omission was over-confidence or just a simple mistake, who knows, but it was a glaring oversight from a captain and coach who should really know better.
Shane Watson’s inclusion was a good move, as was Stuart Clark’s at Headingley, but Hauritz’s non-selection was a huge gaffe that ultimately proved costly.
And it will be 18 months before that error, and the loss of the treasured urn, can attempt to be rectified.