Ian Botham has been banging the drum for England's youth brigade ever since this tour began to skid off the rails, and today his wish finally came true. But, even Beefy might have been hard-pressed to envisage a one-day dream ticket of Steve Harmison and Jimmy Anderson, especially back in October, when Anderson was a virtual unknown at the Academy, and Harmison was sending down eight wides in an over in the Ashes curtain-raiser at Lilac Hill. But today, Harmison and Anderson bowled to their strengths – and Sri Lanka's weakness. As our graph shows, their approach was hardly subtle – except for an exquisite change of pace from Anderson that stitched up Sanath Jayasuriya – but undoubtedly effective. Both men are renowned as out-and-out quicks, so both men banged the ball in short of a length. Sixty-five percent of their combined deliveries (78 out of 120) were in that region, and though they went for runs, they picked up vital wickets too.

For 69% of their deliveries, Anderson and Harmison stuck to a decent line on or outside off stump – though being rookies they were prone to spray the ball down the leg side on occasions … 21 of them (18%) in fact. But Sri Lanka were unable to counter their pace and hostility. Three in four of their shots were played off the back foot, including Marvan Atapattu's indifferent prod to first slip that handed Harmison his second wicket, and just eight runs in total came in the V in front of the wicket.

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