Michael Vaughan's mastery of the Sri Lankan seam attack was founded on very solid principles. When his team-mates floundered in the first innings, he flourished, through an awareness of his off-stump, and an understanding of the mechanics of left-arm seam bowling. By the time England followed on, the rest, it appears, had cottoned on. Vaughan top-scored with 64 in England's first-innings 275, but in the follow-on he posted 115, his second Test century, and built the platform for an impressive revival. As our graph shows, Vaughan scored predominantly through the off side, scoring almost twice as many runs in that region (76) as he managed on the leg side (39).

This is hardly surprising. Faced with a seam attack consisting of three left-armers, all of whom were bowling over the wicket, the natural angle of delivery took the ball across Vaughan's bows and towards the slip cordon. Twice, early in his innings, this should have been the end of him, but Jayasuriya at first slip spilled the chances.

Thereafter Vaughan was far more selective in his shot-making. He didn't score from 69% of the deliveries he faced – and played no stroke to 30% of them – but when the ball was up there he took full toll. Sri Lanka bowled 34 full-length deliveries to Vaughan, from which he scored 45 runs. The majority through the off side, of course.

Andrew Miller is editorial assistant of Wisden.com

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