Most batsmen would be happy to make 185 in a Lord's Test. But when Marvan Atapattu holed out to fine leg, there was a genuine sense of anticlimax: he looked a shoo-in for a sixth Test double-hundred, a freaky effort for a man whose average is in the 30s. The main feature of Atapattu's innings was how little margin for error he gave the England bowlers. As our graph shows, when England bowled outside off stump, Atapattu scored 119 off 298 balls (that's equivalent to 2.4 an over), but when their line strayed at all he laced 66 off 53 balls. That's a rate of 7.47 an over. Off Matthew Hoggard alone, the figures are even more pronounced: 24 off 72 balls that pitched outside off (exactly 2 runs per over); 30 off 15 balls further across to the leg side (12 an over).

England did not bowl especially badly, with 85% of their deliveries to Atapattu in the business area outside off. But when they erred, they paid the full price. The first over of the day set the tone - Hoggard strayed twice onto Atapattu's pads and each time was clipped crisply to the midwicket fence.

Atapattu scored over half his runs on the leg side (96 out of 185), and over 65% (121 out of 185) off the back foot. This suggests England bowled too short to him, but they were actually punished more when they pitched up: Atapattu scored 58 runs off 42 full deliveries (8.29 per over), and 84 off 142 shorter balls (3.55 an over).

In all, Atapattu was in control of 89% of his strokes (313 out of 351), which is an exceedingly high ratio, even on a shirtfront like this. Against Andrew Caddick, England's premier strike bowler, that figure rose to a startling 97%. Before this series, Atapattu had a poor head-to-head average of 23.00 against Caddick; here he improved it 74.00 without breaking sweat.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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