It's lunchtime here in Manchester, which means it's 24 hours since England were officially dead and buried in this Test. But a combination of Monty Panesar's customary excellence at Old Trafford and New Zealand's even more customary third-innings jitters has turned the game into a minor classic, with the added ingredient of an uncertain forecast later in the day to throw into the mix.
We're often accused of patronising the Kiwis, or - worse - ignoring them altogether. Stephen Fleming was annoyed that the reaction of the British media following his side's series win here in 1999 was to damn England rather than praise New Zealand, and there's been a similar undercurrent this time around, even if people have been quick to seize on Michael Vaughan's assessment of them as "workmanlike" before the series started.
No one at that press conference could really argue he meant it as an out-and-out slight, but events since yesterday lunchtime have left his comment looking more like a compliment. I grabbed a word with Jacob Oram in India recently and we got talking about New Zealand's weird tendency to stuff things up in the third innings.
It happened in 2004 at Trent Bridge, when New Zealand at one stage led by 250 with five second-innings wickets at hand, but without any prompting Oram said: "It's happened more than just in that series. For three days we compete and then it goes wrong. I don't know whether it's mental or physical. It's as if we're done halfway through a game. I'd be rich if I had the answer. There's something not quite right there. That series was weird. We were on top for a couple of games. Perhaps it's because we don't win too many Tests that we don't know how to seal it. Maybe we don't play enough to win."
You were reminded of his comments as New Zealand slipped yesterday from 85 for two, an overall lead of 264, to 114 all out - a collapse that may yet cost them this match. But what other games was Oram thinking of? In John Bracewell's second game as coach, New Zealand were 73 for two in their second innings against Pakistan at Wellington and led by 243. But Shoaib Akhtar blew them away for 103 and they lost by seven wickets.
Since then, the third-innings demons have reared their heads at regular intervals. At the Gabba in November 2004, they followed a decent 353 first time round with 76 all out. At Christchurch in March 2005, they made 433 against Australia, bowled them out for 432 and were then skittled for 131 before losing by nine wickets. And at Centurion in November, they flopped to 136 all out to go down by an innings. Under Bracewell, their average third-innings total is 198, so perhaps yesterday's surrender should have come as no surprise.
This morning the collapse may still have been playing on their minds. Daniel Vettori let one through his legs at mid-off, Brendon McCullum gave away four overthrows, and England turned ones into twos and twos into threes with the kind of urgency that was mysteriously absent when they were crawling along on Saturday evening. Vaughan in particular looked like a different man from the one who made 30 in eight minutes short of three hours in the first innings. Vettori, supposedly the match-winner, has so far been nullified.
England still have another 123 runs to make, with Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood both in need of a score, but at least we've got a thriller on our hands. Yes, we'll miss Manchester.
