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That will teach you for falling asleep. A test that for three-and-a-half days had moved as quickly as a condemned man on his way to the gallows suddenly turned on a sprightly Stephen Fleming cameo and a sensational spell from Ryan Sidebottom.
New Zealand ended day four of
this first test precariously placed at 147-8 with a lead of 269 after dismissing England for a painstaking 348. However, the day ended up belonging to Sidebottom.
The mop-haired Yorkshireman took the 37th hat-trick in test history. When he cannoned the ball into Jacob Oram's pads, it was only the fourth time New Zealand had been involved in a test hat-trick - two on each side of the ledger.
It was Sidebottom's first hat-trick and achieved while his father, Arnie, and mother, Gillian, watched him live in a test for the first time.
But more importantly than that, for the first time since tea on the first day, England had a bona fide chance of winning the game.
Ironically, it was Fleming who brought them back into the match. The left-hander was at his imperial best yesterday, offering a brilliant snapshot of his career. After England had made batting look an almost impossible art on a Seddon Park wicket afflicted with rigor mortis, Fleming started punching through the line, sending the ball effortlessly into gaps and cruising to his 44th test 50 with nary a care in the world.
Jamie How gained in confidence and started stroking the ball around. Suddenly New Zealand thought about setting England a difficult chase on the final day.
Then How (39) was caught brilliantly on the boundary with the total on 99 and this test didn't so much undergo a facelift as transmogrify into a completely different beast. It is worth detailing for benefit of readers who had long given up watching:
Fleming (66) drives extravagantly at Sidebottom (5-37) and is caught by Alastair Cook (109-3);
Brendon McCullum (0) is promoted ahead of Ross Taylor and skies a slog-sweep off Monty Panesar (3-33) into the hands of a running Andrew Strauss (110-4);
Quite possibly Mathew Sinclair's (2) last shot in test cricket is a wild slash to gully of Sidebottom which Cook grasps brilliantly (115-5);
Oram's first ball traps him dead in front for the hat-trick, making it five wickets in 23 balls (115-6);
Taylor (6) chips lamely back to Panesar (119-7).
That's not a collapse but an implosion. Twenty runs, six wickets, and the test that was impossible to lose suddenly becomes difficult to escape. Skipper Vettori and Kyle Mills fought something of a rearguard until the latter (11) became Panesar's third wicket at 141 and with the lead 263.
England skipper Michael Vaughan must have been pinching himself.
The third-innings curse that killed New Zealand when they toured theMother Country in 2004 had returned with a vengeance.
On that ill-fated tour, New Zealand were competitive for the first two innings of all three tests before collapsing badly, with both bat and ball, in the second half of the matches.
It has been the greatest and most justified criticism of John Bracewell's reign that he hasn't been able to produce an environment whereby perfectly capable players have been able to sustain a high level of performance through five days against good opposition.
The most painful aspect of this was that there were no warning signs. England, to be frank, did not look interested in exposing New Zealand's fragility. They barely looked interested at all.
Vaughan had spread the field and was thinking purely damage control.
You can put New Zealand's collapse down to many things but inspirational leadership was not one of them.
Paul Collingwood (66) and Tim Ambrose (55) crawled through the morning. There was something to admire in the way they doggedly went about their task - but not much. You had the feeling that umpire Daryl Harper was only acting on the wishes of the majority when he adjudged Collingwood leg before to Jacob Oram. It wasn't a bad decision as it turns out, though he had turned down more convincing shouts earlier.
His dismissal triggered, in the context of this test, a flurry of wickets. Fleming caught Ambrose at slip in the first over after lunch, delivered by Jeetan Patel. Next ball Steve Harmison contrived to top edge a sweep on to his arm and into the same pair of hands.
Fleming now has 169 catches in tests, second on the all-time list behind Australia's Mark Waugh's 181. Unless England bat out the rest of the series using only an outside edge, Fleming will fall agonisingly short of that record.
Fleming is also credited with reviving Sidebottom's test career after England management came to him for advice while he was captaining Notts. He probably regretted that last night.
The smart money is probably still backing the draw, particularly if New Zealand can negotiate the first five overs today but if this test has proved anything, it's that there are no guarantees.
TEST HAT-TRICKS INVOLVING NEW ZEALAND
* 1930: Maurice Allom (England) at Lancaster Park.
Victims: Tom Lowry, Ken James, Ted Badcock.
* 1976: Peter Petherick vs Pakistan at Lahore
Victims: Javed Miandad, Wasim Raja, Intikhab Alam.
* 2004: James Franklin vs Bangladesh at Dhaka
Victims: Manjural Islam Rana, Mohammad Rafique, Tapash Baisya
* 2008: Ryan Sidebottom (England) at Seddon Park
Victims: Stephen Fleming, Mathew Sinclair, Jacob Oram
