Sri Lanka lined up with three genuine left-arm seamers in Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Zoysa and Ruchira Perera, and though this was not quite a Test first - Vaas and Zoysa lined up alongside Sajeewa de Silva at Hamilton in 1996-97 - it was certainly the first time England had faced such a problem, and it showed. Our graph shows the line the Sri Lankan left-armers bowled, with the graph at the bottom contrasting their approach with that of the sole right-armer, Charitha Buddika. Whereas Buddika pitched 84% of his deliveries outside off stump - good bowling for a right-armer, which brought him three wickets - Vaas, Zoysa and Perera only did so 32% of the time. For Buddika this would have been rank bad bowling, but the left-armers' angle from over the wicket, allied to the fact that the ball was swinging both ways, made them a distinctly tricky proposition.

Another feature of a very good Sri Lankan bowling performance was their length. The seam quartet hit a good length 68% of the time. By comparison England, on the first day, managed only 48%. Those 308 deliveries that Sri Lanka bowled on a good length went for only 109 runs (a rate of 2.12 per over). When they were too full, England laced 84 runs off 71 balls. That's 7.10 runs per over.

Buddika was on the money, length-wise, an impressive 77% of the time. And he troubled the England batsmen consistently: England played 23 uncontrolled strokes - that's edges, or play-and misses, or shots where the batsmen didn't look entirely at ease - off him, more than any other bowler.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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