By David Clough, PA Sport

England's Oval crowd cheered every run and dot ball to the Kennington rafters as a their favourite son of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, defied Australia's last vain thrust to bring the Ashes 'home' for the first time in 18 years.

Kevin Pietersen's maiden Test hundred was a fretful effort entirely in keeping with the personality he has created for himself, "on the edge" of sporting reason yet forever now at the heart of English cricket folklore.

Without the mercurial, stripe-headed will of Pietersen - and the 158 runs he wrested from Australia - England would more than likely have fallen short of the draw they needed to complete their mission improbable of regaining the Ashes against a team touted as the best in the world.

Pietersen needed several strokes of good fortune along the way, not least when his great mate and rival Shane Warne floored a regulation slip catch with only 15 runs on the board for England's emerging hero.

It would be a curmudgeonly dis-service, though, to detract from Pietersen's achievement by suggesting he merely took advantage of Warne and Matthew Hayden's inability to hold on to the early chances he gave.

As the rest of England's middle order failed to contribute to the final push still required, Pietersen twitched his way through the early examination but then produced an irresistible post-lunch assault on Brett Lee which gave his team breathing space and gradually eroded Australia's dwindling hopes.

World record-breaker Warne wheeled through 31 successive overs in pursuit of the breakthroughs which might give Australia a shot at an unlikely run chase.

Instead, aided and abetted by the near strokeless yet determined Paul Collingwood and then by old brick Ashley Giles, Pietersen shut the door.

Neither Warne nor Australia's pace pair Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee could find, hard as each of them tried, enough in the Oval surface to eke out England's batsmen quickly enough - and against Pietersen, over his initial flirtations, there was simply no way through.

The home crowd, of course, showed Warne and Co no mercy once it was clear this summer's wonderful battle for the Ashes was all over bar their shouting.

The only reward therefore for cricket's greatest ever bowler was a protracted test of his good nature as he dealt with cheery standing ovations for years of achievement on these shores.

It is simplistic to reduce a tortuous 2005 summer to one or even a dozen or so individual turning points.

But as England supporters celebrate in their thousands - maybe millions if reports of cricket's re-birth are to be taken on trust - they will do well to ponder on how different their mood might have been had one of this sport's all-time greats managed to hold a catch easier than countless others he has gobbled in a famous career.

It really was that close.