James Lawton: Timely victory for enduring values of grand old game

Third Test: Trent Bridge drama shows that cricket's soul remains in five-day arena despite faith placed in aberration of Twenty20 competition

If there is one inherently superior form of sports competition, something that routinely explores a man's soul as much as his talent over an extended period, it is topical to assert that it is surely Test cricket.

Here at this wonderful old arena where the ghosts of the game are almost tangible in their baggy flannels and droopy moustaches, England were good winners over South Africa by 70 runs shortly before lunch yesterday.

It was a vital, series-tying victory, hugely influenced by three or four individual performances of the highest character. But the real triumph, as you knew it would be as long ago as last Thursday afternoon, during a first day of draining tension, was the grand old game itself.

The cricket authorities believe that ultimately the sport can only be saved by crowd-pleasing aberrations like Twenty20, a pop-fuelled caricature of a sport which, like good wine, needs time to breathe. The conviction that they are mad could only be intensified here.

Ten years ago I had a similar argument with the boxing promoter Frank Warren. He is an excellent promoter and one on whom his embattled sport usually relies in Britain these days. His argument, then, though, was that the future belonged to the likes of "Prince'' Naseem Hamed, who made outrageous ring entrances and jiggled over prone opponents, most of whom had come in to the ring half dead.

Warren said that old boxing types had lost touch with reality, that the game had to create a new audience. Hamed did that, at least for a while, but the point worth resurrecting is that boxing can never be about showbiz - no more than cricket. Not in its heart, not in its truest meaning.

Yes, cricket does have to explore new forms of income, but never at the cost of the integrity of the game that has been beguiling full houses at Trent Bridge these last few days. Whatever else it does, cricket must ensure that young players learn to play the long game properly, to develop their technique and their competitive characters to the level displayed at its best by at least half a dozen players who could easily have claimed, without too much controversy, the man of the match award which went to England's new fast bowling name James Kirtley.

Nasser Hussain, who was English cricket's public enemy No 1 after his abandonment of the England captaincy a few weeks ago, was the nomination of his former captain Mike Atherton. But, in these populist days, the decisive votes came via the website entries of television viewers.

Atherton thought Hussain was the rock of England's victory with his first-innings century and a vital 30 in a second innings which staved off the prospects of a total collapse of his team's batting - and gained England just enough leverage when another candidate for best player, South Africa's combative Mark Boucher, produced his second half-century yesterday to bring at least a few flickers of apprehension into the England dressing-room.

Then there was Shaun Pollock, the South African thoroughbred who bowled beautifully in both innings and batted with tremendous guile and calmness in the first. Pollock flies home to Durban today to see the birth of his forthcoming child, and for the men he leaves behind, and most notably his 22-year-old record-breaking captain, Graeme Smith, it will be like watching a cloud covering the sun.

No one could argue too strenuously with the choice of Kirtley, however. He delivered victory yesterday with four wickets that broke the South African defiance he had first undermined as the light began to fail on Sunday evening.

Kirtley knows about the long route to success. Two years ago, at the age of 26, the legality of his action was questioned by a Pakistani match referee in a game in Zimbabwe, and since then he has been required to push along in the shadows.

His brilliant success here will no doubt provoke fresh question marks, but he is a dour, resilient and still youngish man and he can draw encouragement from the fact that two of the greatest wicket-takers in the history of the game, Courtney Walsh and now Muttiah Muralithran, know what it is to bowl against fingers of suspicion.

The question nibbled at Kirtley again yesterday, but he offered the straightest of bats. "I put obstacles behind me,'' he said, "and the way I've done it is just to work and work. I came here with specific instructions. It was to bowl at the off stump, and keep doing it. It hasn't really sunk in that I managed to do so well in my first Test, but I suppose it will soon enough. I'll go to Headingley [where the fourth Test starts on Thursday] with plenty of confidence.''

It is something that needs to be carefully protected, along with England's other bowling hopes for the future: Andy Flintoff, James Anderson and Steve Harmison.

All three of them played vital roles for their new captain, Michael Vaughan, consistently exploiting that bridgehead won so tenaciously by Hussain and his experienced team-mate Mark Butcher on the first day. It was a commitment that cried to be nurtured, and apart from anything else was confirmation of the wise decision of the coach, Duncan Fletcher, finally to admit the bowling coach, Troy Cooley, into the dressing-room during a Test.

Kirtley seemed to have especially benefited in a performance of unwavering concentration. His reward was the performance which sees his name go up in the Trent Bridge pavilion on the honours board - next to a sepia photograph of the great local hero Harold Larwood.

Some said Larwood was a thrower, but he blazed on into the legends of a game which these last few days has shown all of its old vigour and intrigue.

Kirtley's grandfather was a Baptist minister in Antigua, which it is believed, is the explanation for the Christian name, albeit inaccurate spelled, of another great fast bowler, Curtly Ambrose.

It was another reminder that in Test cricket you are part of the stream of sporting life; unlike, in Twenty20, where, the more usual reflection is that you have acquired an ache in the head, and maybe also the heart, about what could happen to the great game of cricket.