New beginning, same old ending. England's cricketers may have embarked on a new four-year cycle of international commitments, but on the batting front at least, certain facets of their play have scarcely changed since the end of 2010. Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott still bat with the rigidity of guardsmen at the Royal Wedding; Ian Bell still exudes the air of a man whose repertoire is wasted at No. 5. And Kevin Pietersen still succumbs to left-arm spinners with a regularity that no-one can write off as a coincidence.
In print if not in deed, Pietersen launched the 2011 summer with an onslaught of ambition, as he sought to draw a line under the events of an eventful winter, and reassert his credentials as one of the greatest England batsmen of his age. A solitary failure in a featureless contest hardly counts as evidence that his world is collapsing around him, but nevertheless, he knows, as we know, that already sceptical tongues are now wagging ten-fold.
Sri Lanka's left-arm spinner Rangana Herath had bowled 122 balls without reward when, in the 102nd over of the innings and his second since the arrival of Pietersen, he skidded one through from round the wicket, and pinned his man dead in front of middle. The ball, in mitigation, kept a fraction low and required a review to send him on his way, but such was the tangle of limbs with which KP had repelled his previous four deliveries, such a scenario had never seemed far from the surface.
Ape Un Play karanawa Hodai Da?????????
