"The way our team have come back to have South Africa on the rack was a fantastic effort," said Vaughan. "The clouds came in at the end and there was nothing we could do about that but we're delighted still to be 1-0 up in the series."
England finished the year unbeaten in 13 Tests, winning 11 matches and drawing two. "Our aim is to have as good a year in 2005 as we did in 2004," said Vaughan, looking ahead to the third Test of the five-match series, starting in Cape Town on January 2. "I'd prefer to be in my shoes than in (South African captain) Graeme Smith's. We're going to go to Cape Town to play as well as we did the last three days."
Smith acknowledged that South Africa were lucky to escape with a draw.
"We were on top of this Test match after two and a half days but we didn't finish it off and they came back and played superbly. We had to fight from there on," said Smith.
South Africa, set an unlikely target of 378 to win, were 290 for eight when gathering storm clouds persuaded umpires Darrell Hair and Simon Taufel to offer South African batsmen AB de Villiers and Makhaya Ntini the chance to go off the field.
With Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard operating with the second new ball, it was an offer accepted with alacrity with 15 overs remaining to be bowled. Fortunes swung throughout the final day. England struck an early blow when night-watchman Nicky Boje was out in the seventh over. After a half-century partnership between Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Rudolph, England fast bowler Steve Harmison struck what seemed to be a decisive double blow when he dismissed Gibbs and Jacques Kallis, South Africa's most experienced top order batsmen, before lunch.
Rudolph and Martin van Jaarsveld gave South Africa renewed hope of salvaging a draw when they put on 69 with sparkling strokeplay in the hour after lunch. But three wickets fell within 20 balls and England were again hot favourites.
Then rookie wicketkeeper AB de Villiers and veteran all-rounder Shaun Pollock put on 83 in a crucial eighth wicket partnership that lasted until the second new ball was taken.
Pollock twice had treatment on the field after being hit on the right and left hands by successive lifting deliveries in Harmison's second over with the new ball. Having survived that, he was run out in the next over when De Villiers played the ball to mid-on, started for a run, then sent his partner back. Simon Jones ran Pollock out with a direct hit at the bowler's end. De Villiers, 20, playing in his second Test, finished unbeaten on an impressive 52.
"The way AB and Polly (Pollock) roughed it out set a standard that all the batters and bowlers need to look at," admitted Smith.
The skipper added the South African batsmen needed to be more ruthless. "We are getting too many 60 or 70 run partnerships. We've got to get those up over 100 - that's when games start to change," he said.