What an astonishing match. What an astonishing comeback, first by England but finally, decisively, by South Africa. Forget Twenty20, cricket can’t produce greater drama than we have seen in this third npower Test match. This is a game that has had everything, not only two teams scrapping for the spoils, South Africa for their first series win in England, England to keep the series alive, but also individual players battling for personal survival.

On Friday afternoon when England were effectively 21 for four in their second innings, there weren’t enough obituary writers to do justice to the corpses lined up in England’s ranks. Michael Vaughan, the Test captain, and Paul Collingwood, the one-day captain, were being measured for coffins. Not many mourners were planning on attending the funerals.

Yet by yesterday afternoon — galvanised again by their superhero Andrew Flintoff — England were closing in on what would have been one of their most famous victories and one of Vaughan’s greatest triumphs. The last time England had batted first, conceded a deficit in excess of 80 and still won was at Sydney in 1979 against a Packer-depleted Australia.

But it was not to be. Vaughan’s opposite number, Graeme Smith, proved stronger and in considerably better nick with the bat and by batting through saw his side home to what he will regard as perhaps his finest series win. Smith’s runs will only highlight the shortfall of runs in Vaughan’s game, though England’s fightback in this game means the aura surrounding his leadership largely remains. Collingwood’s short-term future is more secure after his gritty century.

Collingwood raised his score from 101 to 135 yesterday morning as England pushed their total to 363, leaving an already frustrated South African side a challenging, nerve-jangling 281 to win. It was a fourth-innings target they had exceeded only three times in their history, though if ever there was a batsman to see them home it was Smith.

For more than an hour, South Africa’s opening batsmen proceeded fairly serenely. They had their escapes against the new ball when it swung, but Ryan Sidebottom was given only three overs and the introduction of two key bowlers, Flintoff and Monty Panesar only saw an increase in the run-rate. The crowd had gone horribly quiet.

Vaughan was running out of options on a slow pitch when Flintoff, not for the first time, came to his aid with a truly lion-hearted eight-over spell that eventually brought the gilt-edged wickets of Neil McKenzie and Jacques Kallis.

Both fell lbw, as did Hashim Amla, between times, to Panesar. All three decisions were controversial. Replays suggested that the ball to Amla might have gone over the top, while McKenzie and Kallis were both duped by Flintoff's high-flighted slower balls that they appeared to lose in the dark backdrop above the sightscreen at the Pavilion End.

Batsmen had experienced problems facing the taller bowlers from that end earlier in the game, but for some reason Flintoff proved more problematic than others. The South Africans had brought the matter to the attention of the umpires on Friday evening during Flintoff's first great spell of the match but without the consent of both captains nothing was going to be changed and yesterday England pointedly used the situation to their advantage.

The South Africans were furious, Kallis in particular feeling aggrieved. Only with the greatest self-restraint did he manage to stop himself demolishing the stumps with his bat before leaving the crease after being given out lbw to a ball that struck him flush on the thigh.

The situation of the match was such that minds were being cast back to the game against Australia in 2005, when on a similarly true pitch England defended 282 in the fourth innings compared to 281 now. That game ended in a famous two-run victory with Flintoff sportingly putting a consoling arm around Brett Lee, but now the spirit of cricket appeared to be under threat.

Without the deeper batting line-up they had chosen here England would not have still been in the game but Vaughan must now have wished he could have called on Steve Harmison. Well though he batted yesterday in a stand of 65 with Collingwood yesterday morning, Sidebottom’s inclusion here proved every bit as much of a gamble as that of Darren Pattinson in Leeds.