Poor passing and scrappy play dogged the first third of the game with Crewe unable to gain any type of decent possession to build an attack on, however the opposite could be said about Stoke with their lions share of the ball being wasted through sloppy play.
Crewe did eventually manage to get a shot on target three minutes before half time when Kenny Lunt swung over a cross from the right to pick out striker Dean Ashton at the back post. But the ball seemed to be slightly too high as he put it tamely into Ed de Goey.
Alex came out looking stronger after the break and after winning a corner almost straight from the kick-off, the ball came out to danger man Ashton who struck a 20-yard drive that forced a brilliant low save from De Goey.
Steve Jones got just what he wanted for his birthday when David Wright played the ball into Ashton, who turned Clint Hill to let loose a pile driver from the edge of the box that De Goey stopped magnificently. Unfortunately for Stoke, Jones followed up for the tap in.
Substitute Kris Commons seemed Stoke's only lively player and should have done better when Ade Akinbiyi knocked the ball down for him in the 70th minute, but he put too much into his left footed effort and rocketed it over the crossbar.
The Potters left it right until the end before they managed to equalise when Carl Asaba directed the ball into the six-yard box for the arriving Chris Greenacre, who wrong footed Clayton Ince and placed into the net to rob Crewe of the full three points.
Crewe boss Dario Gradi said: "I thought we were going to take all three points but at 1-0 there's always going to be a risk.
"We should have finished off the second half but the question was were we good enough, the answer was probably not."