First, at 2.51pm precisely, Mark Ramprakash flew low to his right at mid-wicket and clung on to a blinder. Jacques Kallis's pull-stroke had swerved late in its flight and dipped too; Ramprakash slipped in his footing and having set up to take the catch with both hands changed his mind and went with one. Eureka, he got it! Kallis gone. Headingley hysterical.

Then, 10 minutes on, Dominic Cork, who had bowled like a drain in the morning, began to bowl like a dream. He persuaded Hansie Cronje to drive dangerously and edge thickly to the secure hands of Nasser Hussein who waited wide at third slip. Now Hussein catches flies; really he is up there with the best, but this was that one time in 10 that the ball popped in and then, painfully, popped out. The South African captain survived. Headingley grumbled and groaned.

At 3.12pm, Ramprakash the hero immediately became villain when Jonty Rhodes smeared a good-length ball from Darren Gough above head-height to square leg where Ramprakash's fingertips failed to grasp the opportunity. ``Butterfingers,'' cried the fickle folk of Yorkshire.

Worse was waiting two minutes later. Rhodes drove at Cork's ideal outswinger and nicked it to Graeme Hick at second slip, knee-high, a foot to his left. Hick is good, very good, hands like buckets. He shelled it. Hick humbled. Poor Hick, we knew him well. Headingley angry.

Three twenty-seven. Rhodes, yup Jonty again, slightly off balance and half-forward, flashed at a fully-pitched ball from Gough, and amazingly, having edged it, did not bother even to glance behind - he just kept going, allowing his momentum to carry him down the ground and through the pavilion gates. Alec Stewart, safe as houses, caught it ok, but blimey, after the last half-hour you'd have a look wouldn't you? Just in case.

Four fifteen. Stewart, safe as houses, dives low in front of first slip and drops Cronje. It's a charmed life for Hansie and a dog's one for Alec - the captain is pulling the strings in the tense battle for pole position on the third-day grid. It is no sort of life at all for Cork, the unlucky bowler again, who clearly had the genie by his side during the second innings at Trent Bridge but has lost him now.

Four catches down but England not out. Tell the Vulcan that and see his ears twitch. Try telling him that by the virtues of Angus Fraser's pure cussedness, Gough's gigantic heart and Cork's raging self-belief, England are back in it. Tell him that they grassed catches galore but still bowled South Africa out for a score barely more than they were criticised for collapsing to themselves.

You never can tell with this lot, though we are discovering that they won't lie down and die. Old Trafford assured us of that, Trent Bridge enlarged upon it in volumes. Now, in the biggest game an England team have played for years, they are in at the sharp end, at the front of the grid arguably, and no-one can knock them for that.