Headingley has been the setting for a few Test milestones in its time and until the last ten years or so was one of the few grounds where England could count on a better than even chance of victory.

Of late however there has been a disturbing trend. Defeats at Headingley are on the increase.

In fact going back to New Zealand's historic first Test win over England in this country in 1983 there have been nine defeats compared with three wins and two draws.

The record is thankfully far more encouraging against South Africa at Headingley. While the 1994 Cornhill Test in Leeds was a draw - one of three since the first meeting on the ground between the two sides in 1907 - England have in fact won five matches of the nine the pair have played here.

England lost the 1955 Test in Leeds, their only defeat to date, and began the sequence with five victories. In fact South Africa were the only touring team side to lose at Headingley until India in 1952.

The ground has had it share of drama. Ian Botham's exploits with bat and ball against the 1981 Australians when England became only the second side to win a Test after following on, will be etched in the annals of the game for ever, but in 1975 the 'Free George Davies Campaign' sabotaged the Test wicket by pouring oil on it and attacking it with knives. Even so the Test went ahead on an adjacent strip and Derek Underwood took his 200th Test wicket in the course of the match.

And then there was the bomb scare in 1974 in a match which ended in rain with England requiring just a tantalising 44 runs to beat Pakistan.

Underwood's landmark is one of several, most notably by bowlers that have taken place on the ground, Bob Willis reached 300 in 1983, Imran Khan passed the mark four years later, but Headingley has also been good for wicket keepers, which should please England captain Alec Stewart.

Godfrey Evans claimed his 200th Test victim against the West Indies in 1957, while in 1976 Alan Knott equalled Evans' mark of 219 dismissals, and of course in 1977 Yorkshire's own, the England opener Geoff Boycott, scored his 100th First Class century - the first man to do so in a Test match.

South Africa's Peter Kirsten, brother of the Tourists' current opener Gary, became the sixth oldest man, at 39 years 84 days, to score his maiden Test hundred in the 1994 Cornhill Test.

Current England skipper Alec Stewart has every reason to recall Headingley with fondness, because it is the ground on which he scored a gutsy 170 in the Cornhill Test against Pakistan two years ago.

Nasser Hussain is another to have reached three figures on the ground when he scored 105 in the second innings against Australia last year, an heroic effort that failed to stave off defeat.

Graeme Hick scored 110, the second of his four Test centuries to date, in the drawn Cornhill Test against the 1994 South Africans. It is also the ground on which the Worcestershire batsman made his Test debut against the 1991 West Indies side.

Middlesex batsman Mark Ramprakash, declared fit after a bout of tonsilitis this week, is another man to have played his first Test at Leeds, in the same match as Hick. But while Hick managed six in each innings. Ramprakash made a pair of dogged 27s.

Local hero Darren Gough has had mixed fortunes on his home ground. While he picked up five for 149 against the 1997 Australians, two years before that he was struck down by a back spasm which severely curtailed his contribution to the first Cornhill Test against the West Indies.

Seamer Angus Fraser had to wait until his 21st Test before making an appearance at Yorkshire's headquarters. That was against the 1994 South Africans when he took two for 92 in the first innings but did not take a wicket in the second.

Dominic Cork's solitary appearance on the ground was against Pakistan in the second Cornhill Test in 1996 and he picked up the third of his five wicket hauls to date.

With the weather, for once, seemingly set fair, the stage is set for a gripping finale.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.