Well... Shane Warne reckons the Adelaide Test victory beats the remarkable turn-around against Sri Lanka in 1992 (which he'd always rated the most amazing victory of his career) and Ponting has echoed this view.

As with the 2005 game at Edgbaston, I'm not convinced: the drama was special.. but the cricket was mostly uninspiring, with no real contest between bat and ball - in 2005 the Aussies bowled abysmally and Boycott's granny could have scored runs with a stick of rhubarb... and in this test the situation was much the same - but I guess both will go down as memorable... and I certainly have to rate day five of Adelaide 2007 as the one of the great endings to a flat-wicket game with "bore-draw" written all over it.

Bottom line: I prefer bowlers on top... but as batsmen-dominated games go.. Adelaide 2007 has to be right up there.

Funny thing was if England had of batted a little more attacking in their second innings and say got another 70 runs ahead and been skittled an hour earlier this thread may well have been Englands greatest ever victory.

Collingwood 22 not out .....I'm still scratching my head as to why he put the brakes on so hard ??

Typical nonsense from the blonde. I thought it was much less interesting, both as drama and as a cricket match, than even Adelaide 2003/04! And the result then was a lot more satisfying too, at least for any neutral student of cricket. Don't really see what the fuss about the current Adelaide test was; there were some half-decent performances, Hoggard in particular, but nothing special or of note apart from that.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Really so a team which made around 550 in its first inning (England)s got bowled out for 130 something in its second innings that also on the last day of the test, the team bowling first made 513 runs (Aus) and then bowled the other side England out for a paltry score just in enough time to then go on and make it in total Gut Wrenching fashion and all you have to say is oh there were some half decent performences eh??

Hoggard took 7 bloody wickets.. in one innings thats half decent?

Ponting and Clarke...Kp made 100 plus runs each
Collingwood made 200 bloody runs!!!

When have you last seen a test match which involves all facets of drama and the number of twists seen in the Adelaide one... i for one think this is the best Test Match ive seen all year. Except for the one at the Oval nothing tops this

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It was a great victory for the Aussies without doubt but if you dissect the Test match there was 4 days of pretty boring cricket where bat completely dominated ball followed by 1 day of pure excitement with England collapsing and Australia chasing down the low total with time running out.

A brilliant final day but not enough to make it a great Test match. And the groundsman should still be sacked for producing that pitch.

I am sure you can make your point, whatever it is, politely and without having to resort to swearing or shouting, so why don't you do that and I can reply Well said, and precisely my view too.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

I think Warne was saying it was a remarkable Test WIN rather than a remarkable Test MATCH: he was talking more of the way a belief that a result was possible (against all the evidence to the contrary) turned what should have been a routine bore-draw into a comprehensive humiliation.

I'm not convinced any of the batting in the Test can be counted as particularly noteworthy (what's remarkable is merely the number of wickets Clark and Hoggard mustered on a pitch that could easily have seen them take none). That said.. the first four days were more interesting than they had any right to be (mostly because Clark and Hoggard bowled so impressively)... and the creation of tension on that pitch took some doing... and the stage-fright in the England dressingroom did make it a singularly captivating final day.

Fair enough Rachael, but even there I think Warne is talking out of his hat. This is not a great Test win because it was achieved against England, and as all English fans know, their team does occasionally lose it on the fifth day of a Test! Multan this year and Old Trafford four years ago are examples of English collapses even worse than Adelaide, and in both cases, the opposition was significantly weaker than the current Australian team. At OT, England were on course for a draw at tea, and lost it all in the final session - as dramas go, Adelaide does not even compare.

In any case, the first ingredient of a great test win is a team surmounting near-insurmountable odds, and beating the favourites. At Adelaide, the favourites won - surprising, yes, given the nature of the pitch, but is an England batting collapse really that surprising? Hardly.

Now leaving aside the quality of cricket, if its sheer drama you are after, could there really be a greater turnaround than VVS Laxman's Test at Calcutta? Or Dravid and Agarkar's Test at this very ground (Adelaide), for that matter? In both matches, the underdogs (India) came from behind (significantly behind in one case) to win against the world's best team (Australia) and in conditions when all odds were against them - as wins go, this current Adelaide one is not even in the same league, let alone be comparable.

I don't disagree with your comments on Hoggard or Clarke, and do not deny that this was an interesting match, which was very interesting on the last day; however, I would hope that most, or at least half, of all Test matches are interesting, particularly those involving two good sides! Not sure what makes this one so special, Shane's hyperbolic views notwithstanding.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Fair enough... though a draw was not just 'favourite' from day one / two onwards (and especially at the start of day 5): it was a near certainty... and finding an Aussie win (and I'm pretty sure he was limiting his concern to Aussie wins) that was against the odds in the sense of against a team generally regarded as far stronger is not something that's been possible during most of Warne's career for the simple reason that the Aussies have generally been a class apart!

The other match he mentions is http://stats.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE...22AUG1992.html

Now that is what you call a comeback - playing away from home, conceding a first innings lead of almost three hundred runs, and still winning it eventually!

Another interesting Australian triumph was the match at Hobart in 1999/00 - in a low-scoring game, the Australians had to score 369 in the fourth innings, and were 126/5, with most of the big guns back in the pavilion. A novice wicket-keeper, playing only his second Test, joined the opening batsman and single-handedly guided the Aussies home with 149 not out. That was Adam Gilchrist's first test century, and the start of a new era of Aussie domination.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain