It was Michael Atherton's monumental masterpiece. He scored 185 not out; the innings lasted 643 minutes; he faced 492 balls; and he felt as fresh as a daisy at the end of it all.

Atherton wrote at the start of a chapter in his autobiography, Opening Up: "If he is lucky, a batsman may once play an innings that defines him; one that, whether he likes it or not, he will be remembered for."

The 185 was his innings and that chapter was simply entitled "Johannesburg". Cricket followers needed no more explanation. It was 1995, England's first tour to South Africa since the end of apartheid, and it was one of the greatest match-saving knocks ever played by an England captain. Or by any captain.

Now it is tempting to think that such an innings could never be repeated. Atherton acknowledges that this may well be the case, but not for the obvious reason. "There are several players around now who could play that type of innings. Andrew Strauss could. I'm sure Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid could. So might Mike Hussey. But they probably would not do so. Today they would be going for the win.

"In 1995 we never thought about winning that Test. It never occurred to us that it was feasible. That's changed. Expectations have risen. Sides have proven that you can chase 400-plus successfully."

At Johannesburg in the second Test of the series after a much-criticised, delayed declaration by Hansie Cronje, England, having been outplayed from the start of the match, required a notional 479 for victory in just over five sessions. They finished on 351 for five having faced 165 overs. To win, England would not even have needed to score at three runs per over. Today Tendulkar, Dravid, Hussey and even Strauss might have fancied their chances of victory.

Virender Sehwag certainly would have done. His blitz in Mumbai on Thursday, in which he smashed 284 in less than a day from 239 balls against Sri Lanka, meant he has now hit three of the four fastest double centuries in Test history. Sehwag, more than anyone, epitomises how the approach to batting has been overhauled in the 21st century. As a teenager he might have admired Atherton's epic. He shows no sign of wishing to emulate it.

The advent of Twenty20 is one reason for the revolution; it has opened up the horizons of batsmen. The elimination of risk is no longer the highest priority, except in remote pockets of Yorkshire. Three weeks ago South Africa's Twenty20 batsmen knocked up 185 in 70 minutes on their way to amassing 241 in 20 overs at Centurion. It took Atherton almost 11 hours to get that far.

Yet in the grand scheme of things Atherton's innings will remain far longer in the memory. A Twenty20 match is too short to permit a truly epic performance, which Atherton's certainly was. By the end of it everyone in Johannesburg was in awe of a new cricketing superstar, albeit a scruffy, shy, self-effacing one.

Fourteen years on Atherton says: "Whenever I do see old footage, it feels like a different person out there. It's like an out-of-body experience. It's as if I'm watching somebody else. I dread to think what I'd say now if I were commentating on that innings. Contrary to what many thought, I was a technically flawed batsman. I think I'd have to point that out." But he was at his peak, aged 27, still unencumbered by the back problems that would restrict his movement at the crease in the second half of his career, and in his own low-key way he was striving to lead England to some brave new world, just as Strauss is doing now.

In many ways it seems more than 14 years ago, a more colourful, haphazard time in which the captain had to bear more of the brunt on tour. John Barclay, an Old Etonian, a former Sussex captain and the current president of the MCC, was the tour manager; Raymond Illingworth of Pudsey was there as chairman of selectors and coach and some of the time he was assisted by two hand-picked (by Illingworth) colleagues from his generation, Peter Lever and John Edrich. And there was a physio, a scorer and a doctor who, Atherton concluded in his tour report, did not have enough to do.

On the first day of the tour, while the players were concentrating on physical work at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, Illingworth and his fellow coaches popped round the corner for a round of golf. Somehow Illingworth, in the weeks before the tour was able to do several, well-remunerated articles in the Sun outlining the defects of some of England's cricketers. This was another era.

Once the tour was under way it became apparent that Illingworth could not get on with Devon Malcolm, who could not get on with Lever, either. Atherton and Illingworth could get on OK – they were often bridge partners – but had numerous disagreements over the cricket.

Meanwhile Barclay, who became a lifelong friend of Atherton, buzzed around trying to keep everyone heading in the same direction. "It was a happy dressing room, I think," Atherton says, "but there was plenty of colour and niggle. It would have been interesting to write about." Atherton is now the consummate media man, eager for a bit of spice at press conferences, which represents a considerable change of priorities to when he was captain. He admires the two Andys – Strauss and Flower – enormously, but as a journalist he just wishes that they were not quite so sensible. Dear old Illy never failed to provide good copy.

The first Test of the tour at Centurion had been a rain-ruined draw, in which Graeme Hick played one of his best innings for England, 141, which would soon be forgotten after a thunderstorm prevented South Africa from having to bat in the match. At the Wanderers in the second Test England, having chosen to bowl first, squandered the new ball.

South Africa took a first-innings lead of 132, which was extended to 478 when Cronje, eager that Brian McMillan should reach his century, belatedly declared 27 minutes before lunch on the fourth day.

So began the first of Atherton's great duels with Allan Donald. (The reprise took place at Trent Bridge in 1998. There Atherton survived an appeal – justified – for a gloved catch, afterwards signing the offending glove for Donald to raffle in his benefit year.)

Atherton talked me through his innings at the Wanderers two days after the match and we decided that the barrage from Donald was reminiscent of the spell he faced from Courtney Walsh in Jamaica in 1994. On that occasion Walsh bowled 14 ferocious consecutive overs, not resting until he had got his man.

"Donald bowled as quick as you can get," Atherton said then, "as quick as Walsh but he was not so hostile. Nor was the crowd. Every time Donald bounced me I made a conscious decision to stare at him, to make eye contact and let him know I wasn't cowed. After a while that became an automatic reaction."

Shaun Pollock, in his first Test series, was equally tricky, but with Alec Stewart as his partner, 75 runs were scored at a good rate at the start of England's second innings. Atherton found himself hooking the short balls. "It wasn't intentional. There is a balance between being pumped up and controlled and maybe Stewie and I were too aggressive for a while." They were not going for the win, of course, merely trying to assert themselves against a fired-up South Africa attack.

But soon Stewart was bowled by McMillan. Mark Ramprakash, in one of his hopeless phases as an England batsman, followed two balls later, driving wildly. "There was no point in my worrying about Ramps' state of mind out in the middle," Atherton recalls now. "I went to see him that night."

Atherton alone appeared up to the task. Graham Thorpe scored one run in 18 overs after tea before succumbing to the first ball he faced from Meyrick Pringle; Hick soon became Donald's 100th Test wicket. At the close England were a precarious 167 for four, with Atherton 82 not out.

That night Atherton dined – and drank a few glasses of wine – with Stewart and Thorpe at Tokyo's, a Japanese restaurant a short walk from the team hotel. He slept well and woke early. Looking back now Atherton recalls that he was not great at resuming an innings the next day. "Sometimes I would shut myself away, avoid alcohol, do all the right things and get out straight away the next morning. Later on I realised I needed to get out of the room, to stop thinking about cricket. Strauss has had a similar problem, often failing to get going the following morning." Maybe he should take note.

However, Atherton was not so fluent on the resumption of play. "My feet were moving across rather than down the pitch." He was usually motionless between deliveries, relaxing and conserving his energy, but even he tried some Robin Smith-style skips to get his body moving (Smith was now his partner). He nudged to 99, aware that he had been dismissed twice for 99 in his Test career.

He clipped a short ball from Donald off his hip. "When I hit it I thought that's three." In fact it hit the midriff of Gary Kirsten at short leg and bounced to the ground. "It would have been an unlucky dismissal. But the adrenalin was pumping now. I was waiting for a short one next ball." It duly arrived and Atherton hooked it for four.

He embraced a startled Smith, who expected Atherton to show his customary reserve in his celebrations – "I just released all my emotions for a minute or so." Now the fluency returned. But at 11.45am Smith was out, caught at third man. Enter Jack Russell.

Meanwhile in the dressing room Dominic Cork sat next to Angus Fraser, watching the game on television. Superstition demanded that he stayed in the same seat for the next five hours, rising only in between overs to stretch and go to the loo.

Somehow Russell survived until lunch. Atherton ate spaghetti, browsed through the papers, did not bother with a shower and carefully fixed Thorpe's grille to his own helmet (a bouncer from Pringle had dented his). He said to Russell: "They'll start twitching if they don't get a wicket in this session." In the afternoon Russell looked more secure. After mid-session drinks the 12th man, Richard Illingworth, reported back to the dressing room: "Jack's looking knackered but Athers is as fresh as a daisy."

Atherton described his state of mind in his autobiography. "By the afternoon, and for the only time in my career I was in the zone. It is a state much talked about by sports psychologists and while I can describe my feeling, I couldn't begin to explain how to replicate it … I was in an almost trance-like state. It was a state of both inertia and intense concentration and I knew that I was in total control and they couldn't get me out."

They could not get Russell out, either. "At tea the mood in the dressing room was still tense but more upbeat," Atherton says. "We had come so far that the thought of losing the match made me sick in the stomach. This was a different sort of pressure, the worst kind. Now it would be a massive cock-up if we failed to save the game." Cork, still in the same chair, experienced the same agonies.

By now the South Africans were flagging, too exhausted to make much use of the third new ball. When the bails were removed Atherton had the energy to run from the field. "Bob Woolmer [the South Africa coach] congratulated me graciously, the players engulfed me, Illy gave me a handshake."

But do not take that to mean that Illingworth was only mildly impressed. It's is just that he and his generation did not do embraces. He said that Atherton's innings was "one of the greatest ever played – I have never seen a better or gutsier knock … I have often said that there is a lot of Geoff Boycott in Mike and he proved it that day."

Fourteen years ago, our own Kevin Mitchell made a similar comparison in these pages. "There is one Englishman in South Africa who could once have done what Atherton did (possibly still could) – but it is doubtful if the nation would have wrapped Geoffrey Boycott in as ample and loving a hug as it did the man from Lancashire."

For Atherton that evening there were drinks aplenty, with Ian Botham among others. Back at the hotel Russell, to his astonishment, was reunited with his wife, Aileen, surreptitiously flown out that day to South Africa by Barclay.

Atherton was excused the next match at Paarl. Instead he was taken fly-fishing by Barclay for the first time in his life and he soon discovered that he liked it, which was not so surprising. You need patience in abundance for that as well.