Marcus Trescothick scored England's first and only h undred at Headingley on Saturday, in their fifth successive defeat by Sri Lanka; Vikram Solanki's fluent unbeaten 44 from 34 balls may have saved his international career; and Jamie Dalrymple's 30 off 27 balls took his five match aggregate to 202 in a ship that sank without trace.
Oh yes, Andrew Strauss won the toss - and that is the sum total of the credit side of the most one-sided mis-match of the five and this writer is tempted to pen the shortest match report in his last 26 years. After all, the winning margins for Sri Lanka were, in order, 20 runs, 47, eight wickets, 33 runs and eight wickets again, with all five games over as contests more than an hour before the last rites were played out.
Only editorial pressure of expectation forces a full report, but duty calls, so here goes to examine a debit column that seems endless.
Headingley was the stage for the most staggering Test innings ever played in this country when Ian Botham whacked Australia for 145, and upset hotel bookings and train timetables by taking the game into the fifth day.
An innings of similar devastating calibre was played on Saturday by Sanath Jayasuriya, whose 152 from 99 balls (104 in boundaries) was the most contemptuous treatment of any international attack in recent years, and that includes Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Kenya.
After five overs, England had scored seven - Sri Lanka 59. After ten overs the difference was 39 compared with 133 and after 20 overs the equation was 107-194, with Strauss then in the impossible position of still having two five-over power plays still to endure, whereas Mahela Jayawardene had used this three with the mandatory nine fielders in the ring.
Power plays have revolutionised the one-day game, widening batting horizons still further. The previous highest total on the ground was 298 but, even though England topped that by 20, they were never in a game which ended with 46 balls to spare.
Among the records broken was Sri Lanka's first-wicket partnership of 281, beating by 19 the previous record of 262. Steve Harmison took away from Derek Pringle the unwanted tag of England's most expensive ten-over figure - 10-0-97-0, and that after a couple of decent overs to begin with.
It seems that Harmison believes he has more difficulty in controlling a new white ball compared with a red one. Well, tough luck because, in military terms, it was a treasonable offence to back off and persuade Strauss to give it to two youngsters who came into the game mentally in gibbering shock after Old Trafford.
What followed was unprecedented in one-day international cricket. Having gone for 34 off his last two overs at Old Trafford three days earlier, the unfortunate Kabir Ali's first two overs went for 28, in between which Tim Bresnan disappeared for 18. No wonder Strauss had to turn to Harmison for the fifth over, and the desperate home captain was reduced to giving over No 8 to Dalrymple.
Not even Muttiah Muralitharan bowls after the first seven overs, and 14 runs were duly plundered with only two deep fielders allowed. Crazy cricket in which the first hundred came up off 51 balls, and not until the 18th over did the run-rate dip to under ten per over.
Strauss was like a sea captain clinging with one hand to a piece of wreckage from his ship, while waving frantically with the other to anyone who dared to look at him.
The sixth bowling change came after 16 overs, but nobody could stop the unstoppable, as the final combined figures of Harmison, Kabir, Bresnan and Liam Plunkett show. 23-0-244-0. Wicketless and costing 10.5 runs per over, even when they had five boundary outriders.
The count of wides in the series gifted to Sri Lanka topped 75, plus the runs scored off the same number of extra deliveries - and the tourists scored mostly at a run a ball in the series.
Contrast their inept efforts with the heroic and arrow-straight Lasith Malinga whose last two overs brought him three unassisted wickets for 11 runs. Brilliant reverse swinging yorkers were too much for Dalrymple, Geraint Jones and Bresnan.
Trescothick is the only England cricketer to reach three figures in 12 months in ODI games, and Saturday's 121 off 118 balls was his third.
Alastair Cook did well enough with 41 out of an opening partnership of 82, and Ian Bell might have scored only 18 in a second-wicket stand of 75, but he readily rotated the strike for Tresco-thick, before he finally fell to an outstanding catch by Kumar Sangakkara.
Conversely, Solanki did not receive half the strike from when he came in, but played confidently and well while his partners were Malinga-ed.
The ICC started a series of meetings yesterday where the ten-strong Chief Executives' Committee decided to recom-mend a trial period during the Champions' Trophy in October for players to be allowed three appeals per innings if they think an umpire has made a mistake.
If that dangerous rule had been in place on Saturday, Trescothick would have been given out by the third umpire in the pavilion when 36, and the game would likely have finished before the start of the England football match at 4pm, instead of nearly two hour later.
He got a thick inside edge to one from Dilhara Fernando and Sangakkara was in suspended disbelief when Billy Doctrove shook his head, and a sheepish Trescothick took guard next ball.
Jayasuriya took both awards for man of the series and man of the match, but let us not forget Upul Tharang who "only" managed 109 off 102 balls, and Malinga.
Who knows, a look at his family tree might reveal that his grandfather was an extra in the film Braveheart? England are now so desperate they just might pursue such an inquiry. ..SUPL:
