For much of yesterday, Australia resembled a man hanging from a cliff by his fingernails, clawing and scraping the rock face, but slipping ever more gradually into the abyss. That they had defied gravity by the end of the day was down solely to the brilliance and fighting spirit of Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin, who put on a record sixth-wicket partnership for Australia at Lord’s and who have given their team a glimmer of hope when all had seemed lost.

Australia had been outplayed, out-thought and outfought until Clarke, who scored his third Ashes hundred and his first in England, and Haddin came together at 128 for five, the game seemingly beyond them and England rampant. But Test-match victories over Australia do not come cheap and, if anything, it was England who were grateful for the chance to recuperate when the umpires offered the light with 12 overs remaining in the day, the partnership worth 185.

Strauss had already called his team together for an unscripted team-talk when the new ball was taken after 80 overs. Was this the first sign of panic, with Australia 245 adrift, or was it the officer rallying his troops for one more push into enemy territory? Whatever it was, it did not work as Clarke and Haddin continued to attack, 26 runs coming in the final six overs of the day. Strauss will have been grateful for the night’s rest, which should invigorate his seam attack and force the batsmen to start again.

Australia require 209 more runs to win. Memories of Edgbaston 2005, when Australia came close to winning from a seemingly impossible situation, remain sharp, the pitch is good and Australia bat deep. England’s alpha males, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, are hurting, to judge from the amount of time they are spending off the field, and Graham Onions is also not fully fit, having hurt an elbow. But an early wicket should seal Australia’s fate; England should win, and comfortably.

They will have to separate the two New South Welshmen, though, Clarke and Haddin, who played magnificently. Clarke represents the aristocracy of Australian batting, light of frame, all twinkling footwork, supple wrists and positive intent. His off-side driving at the start of his innings yesterday was a delight, his down-the-pitch style of play against the off spin of Graeme Swann a lesson. Haddin is stockier in build, his strokes punchy rather than silky smooth; he is worth his place in the side as a batsman alone and he won’t be bullied.

Both had to be resilient after England’s bowlers had again shown Australia how best to exploit what has been an excellent Test pitch. One of the reasons behind England’s improved showing has been the decision to give Flintoff the new ball and he led the way again with an initial spell of 7-2-9-2 that pinned Australia to the back foot — literally and metaphorically — from the word go.

Even when he was not taking wickets, he was softening up the batsmen at the other end. Swann’s castling of Marcus North with a lovely drifter owed much to the treatment handed out by Flintoff during his seven-over afternoon spell. Stuart Broad took his cue from Flintoff’s leadership and bowled his best spell of the series after lunch, sustained pressure at last from him that culminated in the wicket of Ricky Ponting, dragging on to his stumps from wide.

Ponting’s dismissal was the only one of the first four wickets to fall that involved no controversy. Rudi Koertzen failed to spot that Flintoff had overstepped the mark before Simon Katich drove fatally to gully and refused to refer to the third umpire Phillip Hughes’s edge after Andrew Strauss dived forward to scoop or catch the ball, depending on your point of view. Mike Hussey was then adjudged by Billy Doctrove to have been caught at first slip off Swann when replays suggested that he hit the ground but not the ball.

Hughes’s was the most controversial of the three dismissals, the Australia captain urging his 20-year-old opener to stand his ground while the umpires conferred. Had Koertzen referred the catch, the third umpire, Nigel Llong, would, surely, not have been able to conclude for certain that the ball had carried to Strauss. The catch was probably good, but replays served only to muddy the waters.

Koertzen has not had a particularly good match, erroneously giving the Australia captain out in the first innings and showing a lack of consistency now, given that he had referred a “catch” by Nathan Hauritz in England’s second innings. But two things need to be said in his defence: he is not the first umpire to miss a no-ball and a millimetre makes no difference to whether the batsman edges the ball or not. And if every such catch were referred, no batsman would be given out, since, because of the foreshortening of the image, the cameras often lie.

The controversy shrouded one or two other things, too: Hughes’s eccentric technique at the top of the order is unravelling by the hour, highlighting what a risk it was by the Australia selectors to come with only two specialist openers, and what a difference it would have made to Flintoff’s tally of Test wickets if, as on these two occasions, he had bowled a consistently fuller length. He found the edge of Hughes and Katich by drawing them forward, something that he has conspicuously failed to do for most of his career.

No doubt there will be much whingeing Down Under after this, as there was in 2005 about the rub of the green. England felt the rub went against them in 2006-07 and for most of the 1990s. It pays to remember that better bowling attacks create more chances, and therefore create more opportunities for the umpires to make mistakes. England feel that they hold more arrows in their quiver than Australia, which the bowlers must prove this morning as a pre-sold full house gathers to see Australia’s Lord’s spell broken.

England First innings 425 (A J Strauss 161, A N Cook 95; B W Hilfenhaus 4 for 103)

Second innings 311-6 dec (M J Prior 61, P D Collingwood 54)

Australia First innings 215 (M E K Hussey 51; J M Anderson 4 for 55)

Second innings
P J Hughes c Strauss b Flintoff (34 balls, 2 fours) 17
S M Katich c Pietersen b Flintoff (5 balls, 1 four) 6
*R T Ponting b Broad (69 balls, 6 fours) 38
M E K Hussey c Collingwood b Swann (63 balls, 3 fours) 27
M J Clarke not out (198 balls, 13 fours) 125
M J North b Swann (25 balls, 1 fours) 6
†B J Haddin not out (126 balls, 10 fours) 80
Extras b 4, lb 6, nb 4 14
Total 5 wkts, 86 overs 313
Fall of wickets 1-17, 2-34, 3-78, 4-120, 5-128
Bowling Anderson 18-3-81-0; Flintoff 17-3-49-2; Onions 9-0-50-0; Broad 13-3-32-1; Swann 23-3-62-2; Collingwood 6-1-29-0
Umpires B R Doctrove (West Indies) and R E Koertzen (South Africa)
Match referee J J Crowe (New Zealand)