This is certainly one aspect of the game of cricket. There are numerous other examples from international test cricket down the ages, where two batsman have held out an attack to save a match, against all odds of the other team's high score, and this was one more such situation.
There are two separate issues this raises according to Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson 57, a Baptist minister and life long cricket chaplain who served the Australian Cricket Team for 17 years before moving sideways in 2001 to Life after Cricket.
"The first is that, apart from the notion of a five-day event, Cricket is not alone in seeing one team dominate at first, and yet lose the match," observed M V Tronson.
Sport is littered with such results in sports where goals or points are often difficult to come by, such as in soccer, hockey and even netball. One team can dominate the flow of play, yet be unable to complete the task of securing that final winning point.
"Delma, now my wife of 32 years, once visited me in Wollongong in our courting days and watched our St Matthews (green and black check shirt) hockey team play Wollongong University (black shirt with a gold trim). Delma too was a hockey player and knew well the techniques of the game.
"We often speak of this occasion as St Matthews won 2-1 and we could count on one hand the number of times we made it into the University's team circle zone, yet we scored twice. Wollongong University overwhelmed us throughout the game except in goals," M V Tronson recalled with pleasure.
Secondly, Mark Tronson comments that there is another even greater example of this scenario. It is the greatest story ever told, it is ingrained within the pages of the Scriptures from Genesis to The Revelation.
The Psalmists are constantly bemoaning the theme that the wicked thrive and dominate this world. However, there is an assurance that this will not be so forever. The time of such evil dominance will come to an end, and the order of the world will be put right.
The New Testament is replete with this very theme. This world will have its day, although there are principalities and powers at work, there is a new world coming. The winning goal is a certainty.
"This is the core message of the Gospel, that on the Cross when Jesus exclaimed, 'It is finished' affirmed this eternal acclamation; while the empty tomb was the divine evidence," M V Tronson pointed out.
This recurring theme illustrates that what we see in sport has a parallel in so much of life, and moreover demonstrates that the eternal dimension has more than an illusion; it has a ring of truth to it.