Alastair Cook stood in disbelief after rocking back to play his favourite pull shot only to bottom-edge Dhammika Prasad’s delivery and see the ball cannon into his stumps. It was the lowest point of the worst day of his captaincy.
When Cook was churning out hundred after hundred he would have dispatched the ball to the boundary but now, woefully out of form and fighting for his captaincy life, even the shot that has earned him a huge chunk of his 8,000-plus Test runs let him down.
Cook was gone for 16, Gary Ballance followed next ball and England began crashing in the most demoralised, shambolic manner possible to the unheralded talents of 31-year-old journeyman Prasad, who took four prime wickets.
When nightwatchman Liam Plunkett tamely lobbed Rangana Herath to cover off the last ball of the day, England’s misery was almost complete.
At 57 for five, chasing a massive 350 to win this second Test and the Investec series, they today face a humiliating and hugely damaging defeat.
There were many dark days during a winter when England were taken apart by Australia but this is surely as bad as it can get for a captain who survived the cull that greeted the 5-0 Ashes whitewash.
A two-Test home series against Sri Lanka was meant to provide a gentle start to the new era, a chance for England to regroup and Cook to prove he can mould a team in his image to lead
England forward positively.
Instead, barring a miracle to surpass the 1981 Ashes Test on this ground, it will today turn into Sri Lanka’s historic first Test series win in England to complete a clean sweep after their victories in the Twenty20 and one-day series.
That will be a crushing blow for England’s new regime, not least a captain in Cook who will go into a high-profile series against India under enormous pressure. If he gets that far.
It is conceivable, with England a rabble under his leadership yesterday, that Cook will fall on his sword.
England have invested hugely in Cook and will want to give him a lot more time but to be outclassed by Sri Lanka and their supposedly pop-gun attack at home will seriously test the ECB’s loyalty.
Remember, England dominated the bulk of the first two days of this Test, having come within one wicket of winning the first, but the transformation since England were coasting at 311 for three in reply to Sri Lanka’s 257 has been total.
Sri Lanka, supposedly the warm-up for the main Indian act, have been sensational under their highly impressive captain Angelo Mathews and have proved their quality and toughness here — but there is no excuse for England.
They were pathetic yesterday from the moment Cook allowed Sri Lanka to milk 40 runs from the remaining seven overs with the old ball without looking to take wickets.
There can be no sparing a captain who lacked any tactical acumen in the field while his opposite number scored his second consecutive hundred. Cook then carried on his own long spell without a century.
England were still in this match when Plunkett took two wickets in consecutive balls for the second time in this Test to leave Sri Lanka 169 ahead with only three wickets left. But their hopes were soon dashed.
Cook had refused to attack Mathews from the moment Mahela Jayawardene fell, instead trying to target the tail, and allowed him to move from his overnight 24 to a priceless 160, principally in a stand of 149 with Herath.
Most baffling was Cook’s refusal to turn to Moeen Ali for the bulk of that stand between lunch and tea, even though he had taken the wickets of two key left-handers on Sunday and was facing a third in Herath who has a history of swishing at off-spinners.
Instead Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad, who will be crucial when England face those five Tests in six weeks against India, were flogged into the ground, while Chris Jordan struggled to make an impact in his second Test.
England, who squandered seven chances in the Sri Lanka first innings and another crucial one at the start of their second, were again culpable in their own demise yesterday, dropping three more chances and wasting their two reviews.
Most crucial was Plunkett spilling Mathews on 87 off his own bowling, while England’s lack of judgment over reviews was exposed when Billy Bowden missed a clear edge from Shaminda Eranga off Anderson, who demonstrated such fury at the decision that he was last night facing a fine for dissent.
Bowden had almost as bad a day as Cook, later giving two palpably wrong caught-behind decisions that were overturned, with the suspicion being his exchange with Anderson had affected his judgment.
Yet the umpire will not change the result and some time today, probably sooner rather than later, England will be faced with another bout of soul-searching just as difficult as anything they encountered last winter.
This England team are behind Cook and the leadership alternatives are probably restricted to Ian Bell and Joe Root, but the captain will have much thinking to do when he returns to his family farm away from Headingley’s glare. It was not meant to be like this.
