Jayasuriya found wanting by weight of unexpected indignities

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Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka's captain, had a nightmare on his hands. His batsmen, including himself, had let the side down; the clouds that covered the ground on the first day and had helped the England bowlers find lateral movement, had disappeared; the pitch had largely dried out; his seamers did not bowl as well as they had on the first day at Lord's; and Muttiah Muralitharan was not himself.

England's batsmen drove remorselessly on and Jayasuriya had the problem which comes to all captains from time to time. He knew full well before the first hour of the second day had gone by that what he was involved in was a damage limitation exercise.

He showed he was not quite sure how to handle it. As all Sri Lankans will have thought, over to Muralitharan. But it did not work out that way. The off-spinner has had no cricket for more than three months and was seriously short of practice. It was said that he would only bowl in short spells, but such was Sri Lanka's need that before lunch he found himself involved in a 12-over affair and a great many more overs after that.

The guile, the variations, the subtlety and the fascination were all there and maybe, too, his mystery ball, which had received a good deal of advance publicity, but without the usual rhythm and discipline. In fact, the mystery ball, whatever it was, was never made to tell. Muralitharan's phenomenal accuracy was not there either and, for once, he was more than playable.

Michael Vaughan will be kicking himself for wasting another opportunity after being deceived in the air and sweeping too soon. With Murali at one end, the Sri Lankans badly needed their seam bowlers to block up the other but none of them was able to bowl tightly enough.

It therefore became a question of England playing Murali and not getting out to him. They were able to pick up the runs they wanted at the other end. This was made even easier when Murali's control faltered and he gave away runs, too.

Faced with this unpromising situation, Jayasuriya showed himself surprisingly inflexible as though, hitherto, his main attribute as a captain had been to throw the ball to Murali and to sit back and wait. Now that this did not happen, he appeared to run out of ideas.

He should have tried his own left-arm spin long before he did which was after lunch, and have tried more to upset the batsmen's concentration. He never attempted to kid the batsmen by unusual field placings and he was content to let the game meander along which played into the hands of England's batsmen. Sri Lanka's recent long run of success had left them unprepared for such indignities.