Only after being thrashed at the Oval in 1998 have
England stopped treating their Test rivals this month as underdogs – but all subsequent series have been played on equal footing
From this distance it seems to have been a tricky little start to the tour of Sri Lanka, where England spent three days locked up inside their hotel rooms, then had one half of their only warmup game washed out by rain. Still, Joe Root has handled these little challenges with more grace, and good humour, than some of his predecessors did.
Sri Lanka has always been a delightful place to visit but at times a taxing place to play
Cricket. There is a story about England’s tour there in 1934, when their captain, Douglas Jardine, was two hours late for the start of the game because his taxi broke down on the drive down the coast from Colombo to Galle. The car suffered a series of punctures and the driver didn’t have a spare tyre to hand.