Windies’ Charlie Chaplin crew

Batting collapses come in a range of shapes and sizes. With 11 of the last 12 Tests played in Sri Lanka having yielded results, it’s fair to say the island has seen its share.

There are the classic dramatic capitulations. These begin poorly, grow steadily worse through the middle, and end so spectacularly bad that the arrival of the apocalypse is sometimes suspected. One such was India’s fourth-innings in Galle that prompted strident panning of the team’s overseas record, and led to much soul-searching as to the batsmen’s capabilities against spin. Within two weeks, the team had made light work of Sri Lanka in the following Tests.

There are batting efforts which take off with a sideways judder, like a plane in a strong crosswind, then fly successfully for a brief period, before, through a series of unrelated mishaps, like the door falling off, and the co-pilot managing to set his pants on fire, the whole thing nosedives. Sri Lanka have been particularly adept at this, as various batsmen have had vulnerabilities of all kinds exposed through the home season. In the end, Angelo Mathews alone is left floating down on his parachute, surveying the wreckage below him with a palm pressed to his face.

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