England survived the South African pace attack and despicable umpiring to save the second Test yesterday. Asked to make 302 to win in 79 overs they had reached 153 for six when Hansie Cronje, frustrated by a slow pitch, called off his attempt to win the game with two overs remaining.

So ends a run of 10 successive home wins for South Africa and the prospect, much touted, of a whitewash to match that handed out to the West Indies last year. Instead the sides will meet again on St Stephen's Day for the third Test in Durban with the series very much alive.

To see his side to safety Nasser Hussain, the England captain, had stood firm for more than five hours in making a brilliant unbeaten 70 - at first with blazing eyes and nostrils flared as the adrenalin pumped and later with calm dedication - as his side were relentlessly gunned down by the South African umpire Rudi Koertzen and the West Indian Steve Bucknor.

Mark Butcher, Michael Vaughan, Alec Stewart and Chris Adams were all on the receiving end of appalling decisions which so easily could have swayed the match and closed down the series.

Late in the game, too, Lance Klusener twice committed flagrant breaches of the laws of cricket by bowling deliveries to Hussain from behind Bucknor. On neither occasion was a no-ball called and the implication is that had either of the deliveries hit Hussain's stumps he would have been given out.

If this is the best that the International Cricket Council can come up with for Test cricket then things have reached a sorry pass. The players and the game deserve better.

South Africa will be deeply disappointed that they were not able to finish off a job they thought they had all but done when play began. But they have only themselves to blame. They omitted the spinner Paul Adams in the belief that the pace bowlers would exploit low bounce on the last afternoon.

More particularly, they squandered their chances through the inept, conservative cricket they played after tea on the fourth day, when Jacques Kallis and Jonty Rhodes scored just 79 runs in 32 overs while the big-hitting Klusener sat padded up in the pavilion.

Quick runs then, followed by a declaration half an hour before the close, would have left the captain Hansie Cronje not just with two bursts with the first new ball, but also a second new ball late on the final day to perhaps finish things off. He would have killed for that yesterday.

Cronje, not for the first time, let England off the hook.

For England to survive as they did represented a triumph, not just in the context of the game itself but in the aftermath of the blitzkrieg they endured in Johannesburg.

Hussain was superb and batted in all for more than eight hours in the match, not just surviving but taking the attack to the South African bowlers.

However, he has had enough experience of England collapses when games have seemed safe to recognise the massive improvement in the stickability of the team. After the match he praised the character shown by his side, particularly Vaughan yesterday.

Hussain, under the ICC Code of Conduct, is not permitted to comment on the umpiring except in a confidential report, but no one can be in any doubt as to what his views would be.