England needed just one final push to regain the Ashes today - but they were still wary of an Australian "twist in the tale" to conclude what has been a tortuous battle for supremacy all summer.

Michael Vaughan's team stood on the verge of achieving something which has proved beyond eight previous England sides since Mike Gatting's tourists won in Australia 18 years ago.

After Andrew Flintoff (five for 78) and Matthew Hoggard had run through the Australian first innings on a gloomy penultimate day of a wonderfully engaging series at The Oval yesterday, England appeared to hold all the aces.

Even so there was a warning from within the camp, courtesy of Hoggard, that nothing is necessarily as it seems in this 2005 Ashes summer.

"It now turns into a one-innings match, and they could be chasing a target off 20 overs," the Yorkshire seamer predicted.

"It could be another fantastic Test. It would be nice to go through the day without losing wickets - but this series has always had a twist in the tale."

Hoggard is wary in particular of the threat posed by world record-breaking leg-spinner Shane Warne.

"We know we will have to bat well. It is by no means over - we are playing the best team in the world and we have a person called Mr Warne to contend with.

"They have one last chance to keep the Ashes."

A wearing surface ought to give Warne more help than he had when he took six for 122 as England made 373 in ideal batting conditions on the first two days.

"I don't think the wicket is going to get any better for batting on - especially facing him," Hoggard noted.

"We are going to have to bat well, bat time and hope we don't have to bowl again."

Hoggard, whose spell of four for four either side of lunch helped finish off Australia's batting yesterday, was in awe of Flintoff's tireless efforts in an attack missing the injured Simon Jones.

"Sometimes losing players brings out the best in a team. Everyone has to pull together, and to see Fred [Flintoff] bowl 15 overs on the trot is unbelievable," he said.

"He bowled a magnificent spell, put in a Herculean effort - and we managed to bowl them out.

"I don't think we could have asked for a better day when we arrived at the ground in the morning."

Australia coach John Buchanan refused, meanwhile, to offer up the obvious mitigation of very poor light for the tourists who lost their last seven wickets for the addition of only 44 runs to concede an unlikely seven-run first-innings deficit.

"If the light had got so bad that our batsmen felt it was time to leave the crease they would have done that," he insisted.

"It wasn't necessarily a case of bad light that saw our wickets fall; great credit to Flintoff who took the ball from one end and pounded in.

"He wanted to change the course of our batting and he did with the initial breakthroughs."

Even so, Buchanan was not about to give up all hope that Australia could yet sneak an improbable win today to level the series at 2-2 and therefore retain the Ashes after all.

"We have always got a chance. It is obviously a little bit more difficult than when we were all out, because there were more than 150 overs left. Now there are 98," he noted.

"But the players are keen, and we will try to take all the wickets we can."