Butcher strikes a huge blow for the bat-throwers

Two astonishing things happened in English cricket on Monday. First, a fringe player made an indelible mark on the history of the game with an innings which did not just turn a match, it walked all over the marauding world champions. Then, the man concerned revealed himself to be a real person, much like you or me.

Asked for a quote, Mark Butcher said: "I am saying nothing", like Phil Mitchell when the old bill arrive. Informed that he was now a national hero, he said: "I could do without that." When the television interviewer resorted to the desperate tactic of asking him what he had for lunch, he disclosed that he had just sat in the shower with a cup of coffee and a couple of cigarettes.

In the 18 months leading up to this finest hour he had had to deal with a love child, a broken marriage, a loss of appetite for the game and a slump in form so severe that he was no longer sure of a place in Surrey's first XI. It is a modern-day fairytale: fags to riches.

How did he do it? It was a triumph born partly in the mind, partly in the method. Mentally, he seems to have got it right ever since the surprise recall came his way when Michael Vaughan was ruled out of the first Test. Throughout the series, Butcher has had the air of a man who regards high-class bowlers as the least of his worries. As Bob Dylan observed, possibly not while watching Test cricket: "When you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose."

Butcher's worst enemy in this series has been himself: unflappable at the crease, he has been shaky only when running between the wickets or trying to catch the ball at slip. Much like you or me.

In his first seven innings in the series, his method was compact, uncomplicated, better than expected but nothing special. He made 38, 41, 21, 83, and then, when the God of averages spotted him out of the corner of its eye, 13 and 1. He gathered his runs mainly with tucks to leg and that trademark shot into the covers, which is more of a punch than a push, but not quite a drive. Mark Taylor, commentating for Channel 4, was reminded of himself.

On Sunday, after a nothing sort of day, Butcher was the man put up to give quotes by the England PR machine. He said they would be positive. It sounded like a sportsman's cliché, but Butcher does not do clichés. He does understatement. When he said positive, he meant aggressive, bordering on explosive.

He set off at a breakneck pace – and just about kept it up for the rest of the day, without ever letting the adrenalin go to his head. To the tuck and the punch he added the slash, the pull, the drive on the up and the spank (it goes past the man at deep cover, and is every bit as much fun as it sounds). His wagon wheel was so well balanced that a wagon might even have been able to move on it.

He seized on the slightest deviation in length or line from the three fast bowlers, especially Glenn McGrath, and made them pay for it. He was not so much a second Taylor, more an Adam Gilchrist.

What had happened? What had changed? The pitch was still uneven, the bowlers were still outstanding, albeit tired as Gilchrist's inexperience handed long spells to the two men least equipped to cope with them, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie.

The difference was that England, after Butcher had been out in the first innings, had shown some of the fighting spirit which the Australians detected in him. First Alec Stewart and Mark Ramprakash put on 78 with a bustling, Butcherish sense of purpose. Then Stewart did something nobody else had thought of: he smacked McGrath over extra cover for six.

Stewart was making a point to the selectors, who had relegated him below Usman Afzaal in the batting order. But he was also making a statement about McGrath. For years, England had played McGrath in orthodox fashion, and it had done them no good at all. If he had a weakness as a spearhead before this series, it was that his strike rate was modest – usually around 60 balls per wicket, whereas Lee and Gillespie's were under 45. This summer, up to last weekend, McGrath's strike rate was 33. By trying to defend against him, England were surrendering.

Stewart threw down the gauntlet and Butcher took it up. He played McGrath as if he was Angus Fraser on a bad day, pulling or cutting him if he was fractionally short, punching if he went the other way.

At the highest level, metronomic accuracy should not be enough, and on Monday it wasn't. Rattled, McGrath duly bowled a few half-bad balls. His strike rate for the innings was 96.

If Stewart and Butcher can do it, so can Mike Atherton. Tomorrow Atherton plays what is almost certainly the last Test of a distinguished career. The greatest blemish in his ledger is his head-to-head record against McGrath – 18 dismissals for only 237 runs, at an average of 13. The only shot he plays in anger against him is the hook or pull. Yet when Atherton does go for his shots, in a run-chase or a one-dayer, he always looks good. It is time for a final fling – a last, and first, throw of the bat.

Tim de Lisle is the editor of the new Wisden website Wisden.com