Ben on ... Mike's winning reminiscence

The best accounts of the great tests as remembered by Cricinfo readers are given here, but I have reproduced the standout essay below.

Greatbatch and 14 hours of adhesion
Michael Thorn on Perth 1989-90

In November 1989, New Zealand played Australia in a one-off Test at the WACA. New Zealand were without Richard Hadlee and Andrew Jones, and were expected to lose heavily against an Australian team that had been rampant in England. The game started predictably enough when Australia won the toss and ground out 521/9. David Boon scored a double-century and Dean Jones was given out to an appallingly bad lbw decision on 99. By the time Jones was dismissed, I had lost almost all hope of New Zealand escaping defeat, so to make up for it, brainless teenager that I was, I jeered at my television as Jones walked from the pitch and tried to soak up as much malicious glee as I possibly could from his expression of anguish.

New Zealand started day three with nothing ahead of them except for the distant hope of a draw and the more obvious prospect of a heavy defeat. Terry Alderman bowled Robert Vance almost as soon as play got underway and that brought Mark Greatbatch to the crease. The scorecard tells me that Greatbatch must have spent some of the next three days sitting in the stands and that other people must have batted, but if that's true, I don't remember it. What I can remember is that for 221 minutes in New Zealand's first innings and for 655 minutes in the second, Greatbatch stood firm.

Carl Rackemann was ferocious and had the ball bouncing and screaming from the hard and fast WACA pitch, but each of his rockets was met by a Greatbatch defensive stroke which dropped the ball, quiet and dead, to the ground. Even more strongly, I can remember the faint prospect of a draw looming larger and larger and this causing a fear of that hope being crushed to grow at an exponential rate. There were no flashy strokes and no prospect of a New Zealand victory, just a solid forward-defensive shot that acted like a hypnotist's charm, a buzzsaw of tension and a building realisation that there was a damn sight more to cricket than jeering at Dean Jones.

Michael Thorn is a 30-something writer of dull policy in Wellington, who occasionally escapes the drudgery of work to update a blog on NZ cricket, http://mikeoncricket.blogspot.com/.

Mark Greatbatch just went on batting as Australia were left panting © Getty Images