Not so long ago a series win was a cause for national celebration. Slightly longer ago it was such a rarity that there would also be genuine surprise.

That we have become so accustomed to victory that a nine-wicket win - making it seven series wins at home in succession - prompts admissions from skipper and sages of a lack of ruthlessness speaks volumes for how significantly ability and expectations have shifted since then.

England have never before won seven home series on the bounce. Only twice have they won six, between 1882 and 1896 and from 1955 to 1960.

The pressure is now off captain Andrew Strauss after England take a 2-0 series lead against West Indies. Photo: Getty  

Those who had made the trip to Trent Bridge on Monday were certainly celebrating as England went 2-0 up in the three-Test series. Choruses of "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands," echoed round the ground as Jonathan Trott struck the winning runs.

Elsewhere there were logical caveats: it's only the West Indies; it's only at home; don't forget the winter. But in the detail of England's win were reasons aplenty to revel in a special era for England and their supporters.

As Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook set about calmly knocking off the 108 needed for victory, they eased past another landmark - 5,000 runs in partnership at Test level, by a distance the highest aggregate of any England pair.

As an opening combination they are unsurpassed in English history. Only two other pairs - Haynes and Greenidge, and Langer and Hayden - stand above them as more prolific Test openers.

If those statistics give pause for thought, Strauss's successes in the summer so far should keep the numbers ticking over for a while to come.

After a troubled winter and 2011 prior to that, this short series has proved the ideal balm for the captain. With 309 runs from four innings at an average of 77, he has been the premier batsman on display. With 21 Test centuries he is just one off the record jointly held by Wally Hammond, Colin Cowdrey and Geoff Boycott. At some stage over the next 12 months he is likely to pass them.

So too is Kevin Pietersen, currently on 20. Alastair Cook, 19 to his name so far, will follow suit; Ian Bell, with 16 at the moment and arguably with at least another five years in Test cricket ahead of him, could yet do the same.

However strong your attachment to the heroes of old, that is a remarkable demonstration of the depth and class of England's current batsmen - and the same can be said of the bowling attack.

A little lost in the arguments about player rotation for the third Test was perhaps the key reason why England are even thinking about resting James Anderson and Stuart Broad - because they can afford to.

England currently have four players in the world's top 15 ranked bowlers. Not since 1958, when the likes of Trueman, Statham, Tyson, Laker and Lock ruled the roost, have they had so many so high.

Just as during the last Ashes, when they could lose Broad to injury and drop their leading wicket-taker in the series (Steve Finn) yet still win the next two Tests, they have a strength in depth that allows rotation without significantly weakening the attack.

Finn and Graham Onions both await their chance having played key roles in winning the last two Ashes series. Chris Tremlett, when back to full fitness, would stride into any Test side in the world.

It's easy to forget that Trent Bridge man of the match Tim Bresnan is a second choice himself. Yet here is a man who has won every one of the 13 Tests in which he has played, and who has a significantly better Test bowling and batting average than Andrew Flintoff.

Freddie averaged 32 with the ball and 31 with the bat. Bresnan is currently on 25 with ball and 40 with bat. There was of course more to Flintoff's career than mere numbers. But England's current strength in depth is enough to make national skippers of the 1980s and 1990s bilious with envy.

The same cannot be said of the West Indies who appear to be a two-speed team. At times in both Tests they have shown great application and perseverance, only to then capitulate at a dramatic rate.

In Marlon Samuels, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy they have a nucleus of a combative side. In the top order they do not.

In comparison to the successes of Strauss and those immediately after him, the West Indies' top four batsmen have scored 203 runs between them from an aggregate of 16 innings. Not one of them averages more than 19. Poor Kirk Edwards, so at sea that you expect him to walk to the wicket trailing distress flares, is averaging two.

Only so many times can you be rescued by those below you. If the Windies boat is no longer sinking with all hands, it is still listing badly.

"There are some natural flaws in terms of techniques," says Sir Viv Richards, perhaps the greatest West Indian batsmen of them all and in England this summer as a Test Match Special analyst.

"The top four failed to come to grips with the requirements for the conditions they were facing from pitch and bowlers.

"You only need to look at how Samuels and Sammy played in the first innings to see how different it could have been. Even at the point they came in, with six wickets down, they played the pitch rather than the situation.

"It was easy for batting - they should have gone on. There were runs out there to be made. These guys are filled with lots of ability. When you look at young Kieran Powell in the first innings, he got to 33 looking good. If you can't play, you won't get to 33.

"But the ball he got out to was the sort he had been leaving up to that point - and should have been leaving again. Test batting is all about what you have mentally, and if you can't equip yourself with what you need in the middle then you need to find another job."
Dominant in the decades when England languished, the West Indies have now not won a series in this country since 1988.

They have won just one of their last 25 Tests against the nation they used to blackwash with such frightening ease in the 1980s, and since February 2009 they have won only two of their last 32 Tests against all opposition. Defeat at Edgbaston could see them drop to eighth in the ICC Test rankings.

If it is a ghastly time for them, it does not take the gloss from England's accomplishments. In the bad times there was no escaping the misery. Perhaps the good times should be relished in similarly unfettered fashion.

The sunshine had at least been forecast at the start of play. What no-one dared predict was that the tourists would recover from 63-4 and then 136-6 to reach 304 with four wickets still in hand, leaving England so frustrated that James Anderson was seen throwing sunglasses and Graeme Swann booting his home turf.

The source of their ire was perhaps the most unexpected sub-plot of them all. Marlon Samuels has a Test record that is the definition of mediocre - 31 years old, 38 matches, an average of only 30.

His career has been more about infamy than fame - running out Brian Lara in his last ever international innings, being banned for two years for bringing the game into disrepute after a murky business with murkier bookmakers.

Captain Darren Sammy was there to congratilate Marlon Samuels on his third test hundred. Photo: Press Association

His batting rearguard innings at Lord's alongside Shivnarine Chanderpaul had given notice that the ability that saw him given his Test debut at the tender age of 19 might yet remain.

But his 107 not out here at Trent Bridge was several giant leaps further on, an innings that first irritated England and then left them impotent and perplexed.

There was resolve, and there was real class. In partnership with the more liberated Darren Sammy, himself an also-ran producing a performance most thought beyond him, he piled on 150 runs in the last 33 overs of the day.

Whether Samuels has turned a corner in his journey as a Test player is perhaps too bold a claim to make. But he has shown his more callow team-mates at the top of the order what can be done with technique and concentration, and steered his side far closer to parity than seemed possible midway through the afternoon.

"Samuels and Sammy gave us a much better indication of the pitch's true nature than the top order," says Michael Vaughan, former England captain and now Test Match Special pundit.

"This is the best batting pitch I've seen in a long time. I think the par score is around 450 - the bounce is true, there's barely any movement through the air and the outfield is quick.

"Three of the first four wickets that went down were a result of poor thinking and poor technique. Adrian Barath got a good ball, but the others were guilty of playing for the drive at a time when there were three slips and a gully in, and the very strong possibility that Broad and Anderson would get the new ball to move.

"If you're going to drive like that your feet and head have to be perfectly in line. Kirk Edwards had neither in place, and neither did Darren Bravo.

"Sammy played a very nice innings under pressure, both in terms of the match and his own reputation, and Samuels carried on where he left off at Lord's.

"What impressed me was the way the pair attacked in the 10 overs before the new ball. They realised that it was their opportunity to get some runs and they piled them on."

On a day that started so well but ended in increasing and visible frustration for England's bowlers, Tim Bresnan will probably be the most disappointed.

His 21 overs cost him 83 runs with just the wicket of keeper Denesh Ramdin to show for it, 15 boundaries coming as he perhaps strained too hard to find that magic wicket-taking ball.

"Bresnan is a high-quality performer," says Vaughan. "But it's not easy knowing there are quality bowlers like Steven Finn, Graham Onions and Chris Tremlett - when he is fit - waiting in the wings.

"There is the possibility that, in a situation like this, you can go looking for wickets a little too much. It's something Anderson used to do when he was in and out of the team.

"Bresnan doesn't need to do that. England are very consistent in their selection, and rightly so.

"Finn will be in the side sooner rather than later, and he will have a long and successful Test career. But I would have stuck with Bresnan here. He has won all 12 Tests he has played in, and these are conditions that offer little help to a bowler of his type."

At 136-6, West Indies looked almost beyond assistance, certain to go 2-0 down in this three-match series and follow the unedifying example of their predecessors in 2009 and 2007.

That they recovered to the comparative safety of 300-plus speaks loudly of the superior resolve of some of this present vintage. Whether this team can go on to pose a real threat in this match and the series that lie ahead is less certain.

"There is too much quality that is not being utilised," believes Vaughan.

"It's a tall order asking these young players to succeed against the best bowling attack in the world, and I don't see enough of the X-factor there to justify leaving so many other players out.

"Sunil Narine is a quality player, Ramnaresh Sarwan is a quality player. Jerome Taylor can be a real handful for top batsmen, as England found out in 2009. And Chris Gayle has been destroying attacks in the IPL.

"The West Indies management have to find ways of bringing these difficult characters back in. That's what good management is all about - bringing the best out of the materials available to you.

"I'm not sure Gayle can ever truly come back into the Test fold. His mind may be too far away on the IPL. But add Narine to an attack of Kemar Roach, Ravi Rampaul and Taylor, and you have a unit that could take 20 wickets in a match. And then West Indies might just be a different proposition."

England's five-wicket win on Monday afternoon might have been the result that all wise men predicted. But the way they got there has filled weary West Indian hearts with rather more optimism than most expected, and simultaneously shone a light on how this England team hope to fulfil their stated desire to become the best their country has yet produced.

When Kevin Pietersen was caught behind to reduce England to 57-4 with shine still on the ball and 134 more runs needed, thoughts went back to another Lord's run-chase, 12 years ago, when England needed just 188 to beat the same opponents and teetered on the brink several times before wriggling home by two wickets.

This is a more anodyne West Indian side, and England's more comfortable escape must be seen in that context. The pitch this week has been as true as a surveyor's sextant and as full of fright as an episode of Balamory.

Alastair Cook "shut the barn door", according to West Indies legend Sir Vivian Richards. Photo: Getty

But clattering wickets and final-day deficits bring their own pressures. Where heroics were needed back then from number eight Dominic Cork, here Alastair Cook and Ian Bell first stilled the alarm bells and then took control in such unhurried fashion that fright became formality almost before deja met vu.

"Cook, at the top of the order, shut the barn door," says Sir Viv Richards, who as a batsman was rather more about blowing doors clean off.

"It wasn't a negative approach. All the body language was good. Bell came in and was positive as can be, and neither he nor Cook allowed the pressure of the situation to affect the way they played."

Cook eventually fell with just two runs required. But his unflustered 79, and Bell's complementary 63 not out, had steered England from crisis to total control.

"Cook may not be the prettiest left-hander on this earth," says Richards. "Certainly he's not as stylish as a David Gower. But in terms of getting the job done he is marvellous.

"I've watched Bell for a number of series now, and for me he is England's best technical batsman. There's nobody in the team as technically organised as him, nor as fluent in his strokeplay.

"He has come on leaps and bounds. To have a guy coming in at five with his level of batsmanship, with 16 Test centuries to his name, is huge, and the way he now plays means England's middle order is much harder to dislodge than for many years.

"Experience plays a huge part in tight matches like this, and England's collective know-how was a big factor in their win.

"Cook, from his heroics over the past few years, knows how to make sure his team get across the line. They took the quick singles, rotated the strike and made sure they turned ones into twos."

England captain Andrew Strauss reserved his greatest praise for Stuart Broad, whose 11 wickets in the match did so much to create the opportunity Cook and Bell took with such elan.

In his last nine Test matches, Broad has taken 51 wickets at an average of 17, a run now looking less like a golden patch and more like permanence.

With a batting average over the same period of 33, he fulfils the purist's statistical measure of a true Test all-rounder, yet he comes in at eight. While Cork's merry biffing a decade ago will always be remembered fondly, England now have a strength in depth that generally renders such desperate measures unnecessary.

Strauss claimed afterwards, with some justification, that the new-ball partnership of Broad and Jimmy Anderson is as potent as any in the world.

By contrast, it was the West Indies' lack of a similarly strong partner for the impressive Kemar Roach that aided England's escape from 57-4.

"There's a two-card trick that teams need to play in situations like that," says Richards. "When you look at someone like Roach, who in my opinion is as quick as anyone today, you need support.

"But at the moment he is the only one. You need to be able to enforce sustained pressure, with guys at the other end producing the same aggressive stuff.

"England are too wily and experienced a team to be beaten otherwise. They knew that if they saw off Kemar then the guys at the other end wouldn't be coming at them as hard.

"When you're only defending a total of 191 it's vital that you get your wickets from both ends. That's what creates the pressure."

That the West Indies had a chance at all should give their beleaguered supporters great hope.

They are still nowhere near the finished article. They remain a rough draft, lacking depth and Test experience and denied by politics and pound signs at least two of their best players.

Yet even without stellar talents like Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, they found fight and resolve where recent touring teams have fallen away.

"There were a lot of media guys who had checked out of their hotels, who had started booking tee times on golf courses for Monday," points out Richards. "Credit must be given to the West Indies for dragging it out that long.

"Every time you have a Test match that gets close, then the 'if' factor comes into play - what if Trott had been given out on Sunday night, what if we had taken other chances earlier.

"The 'if' factor doesn't take away the fact we still lost again. But it was a spirited effort, and if I was one of the guys in the dressing room then I would feel I had a chance going into the next Test.

"This team can get better. They can learn from their mistakes and misfortunes, and if they can put all their collective positives together, they can develop into a good unit.

"A lot of folks wouldn't have expected this could go into a fifth day. There were a few missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, but if the West Indies can find them then they can go that one step further.

"They can leave Lord's knowing that they put up a good show here."

It wasn't just that the skipper's unbeaten 121 put his side in complete control of this first Test, with a lead of 16 and seven first-innings wickets in hand.

It was a collective celebration, a sympathetic sigh of relief, that one of England's most popular leaders had finally emerged from the most prolonged and agonising slump of his career.

"Outwardly you're always going to say you're playing well, that you're just one innings from playing as well as you ever have," says Alec Stewart, England's most capped player and here at Lord's as an analyst for the BBC.

"Inside he would have been hurting, and in a way a little embarrassed that he hadn't been offering enough to his side as a batsman. He needed this score to put the whispers to bed.

"It's not just his technique that has been examined over the past year-and-a-half. The longer his barren run has gone on, the more the mental side of his game will have been tested too."

Strauss struck the 20th century of his Test career. Photo: PA

For a large part of his Test career, Strauss has excelled at converting good starts into big scores. At the end of the last Ashes in England he had made hundreds on 18 of the 32 times he had passed 50.

The problem since then has not been as straightforward as a dearth of runs. In the 16 Tests since his previous Test century in Brisbane he has averaged 28 - not a great return, but by no means a disaster.

It is more that he had lost the ability to build big scores from promising foundations. Since the winter of 2009 he had gone past 50 a commendable 14 times but gone on to a century only once.

"This innings was as good as you'll see, because of the way he made the runs," says Stewart. "He played like a man who knew he was going to get a hundred.

"He played down the ground beautifully, put away the short balls and seldom looked hurried despite his examination from the pace trio of Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel.

"This was a good day for Strauss to come good. Playing on his home pitch against a lively but less than threatening West Indies bowling attack enabled him to play with confidence and freedom the longer his innings went on.

"He's always been more comfortable with the ball coming on to him. The slower-paced pitches and examination you receive from spin on subcontinent-style pitches are not his first-choice conditions."

Strauss is a normally a non-demonstrative chap, his equitable nature one of the essential attributes in making him such a successful skipper.

He had looked anxious as he closed in, not so much nervous in the 90s as edgy in the 80s. At Birmingham last summer he had fallen for 87 against India, and leaden-footed wafts against Edwards had bowler wailing and batsman self-remonstrating.

His reaction as the ball raced away past gully for the four that brought up his century spoke volumes - of the relief at ending his drought, of satisfaction having batted so chancelessly for so long, and of pleasure at doing so on his home patch, amongst his own.

"When you put away those runs to go past 100, there is a huge adrenaline rush, a great rush of emotion," says Stewart, who famously scored a century in his 100th Test match 12 summers ago at Old Trafford.

"All the pent-up tension suddenly leaves your body. You can actually be a bit shaky afterwards. You have to consciously take a moment to bring yourself back into focus, to bring your heart-rate down.

"Strauss will have felt that release as soon as he hit the ball. He would have known off the bat that it was going for the all-important four. Everything that has been building up and up in his mind for the last 18 months will all have come out at once.

"Everyone on the dressing-room balcony was on their feet. The whole of Lord's was on their feet. It seemed to go on for hours. It was a wonderful moment in Strauss's career."

In only three of Strauss's 20 Test centuries has he gone on to make 150 plus. With the pitch benign, the West Indies attack wholehearted yet impotent and the weekend forecast for sunshine, he will walk out on Saturday knowing he has a wonderful opportunity to surpass his previous best Test score of 177.
"What he needs to do now is build on this tremendous fighting innings," agrees Stewart. "He needs to go on to get one of those Graham Gooch 'daddy' hundreds, and then to take this form into the rest of the summer - because things will get tougher against South Africa."

With this innings Strauss has joined Kevin Pietersen, Ken Barrington and Graham Gooch on 20 England Test hundreds, just two behind joint record-holders Wally Hammond, Colin Cowdrey and Geoff Boycott.

His current age of 35 was once considered the upper limits for a Test batsman. Two of his recent predecessors as England skipper, Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain, had both stepped down at that stage in their careers.

But with Ashes series home and away to follow next year, Strauss is unlikely to be following suit any time soon.

"He has consistently said that he doesn't feel out of form. I don't think he will have worried about being 35," says Stewart, who made his final Test century aged 39.

"Linford Christie said that age was just a number. I prefer to think of it as a unit of experience. If you're 21, you might have more years in the side ahead of you, but you don't have that experience.

"You know when it's time to go. For me it hit me when I was on tour with England in Australia. I got back to the team hotel in Sydney and just knew that I'd had enough.

"Gooch told me that you instinctively know when it's time to retire, and he was right. I just didn't want to tour any more. Others realise they have had enough of the relentless training. Some realise their talent has dropped away just enough to matter.

"You want good players to play for as long as possible. Strauss is nowhere close to being finished."

Men wore striped blazers and duck-egg blue trousers, England's bowling attack ran through a struggling opposition line-up and Shivnarine Chanderpaul pushed and poked his way to within earshot of a century while those around him could only flash and dash.

Chanderpaul is now into his 140th Test. With his strange batting stance, all skewed feet and sideways bat, he is as graceful as a breeze-block and as hard to shift as a foundation stone, an imperturbable oddity in a fast-forward Twenty20 world. So long has he been around that he probably refers to Old Father Time as 'Junior'.

He is also as effective a batsman as his country have ever produced. His 87 not out here, from a total of 243-9, brought his tally of Test runs over the past 18 years to a staggering 10,142 - more than Gavaskar, more than King Viv, more than Boycott, Sobers or Greenidge.

"He's a talisman, and he has been for quite some time," says Sir Viv Richards, perhaps the most charismatic batsman in West Indies history.

"In a team of inexperienced players, Shivnarine has done as much as any West Indian batsman of the past. I have him up there with the very best - Lara, Sobers. He's at the top of tree as far as I'm concerned because of the teams he has played in."

Chanderpaul made 87 not out in his 140th Test match. Photo: Reuters

Chanderpaul at the crease can look as ungainly as Richards was mesmeric. So how can that techinique produce so many priceless runs?

"It goes to show you that sometimes the coaching manual can be astray," says Richards, at Lord's as an expert summariser for Test Match Special.

"As a batsman you have to find a technique that's suitable to you. He long ago found that style worked for him - the two-eyed stance looking back down the track.

"It might look a little ungainly, but the most important thing is that at the point of contact with the ball, his bat is as straight as anyone in the world, and he gets himself into the same position as anyone with an orthodox stance.

"He played a few shots through the off side today. If he wasn't in a good position he wouldn't be able to accomplish that, or to stroke the ball as sweetly as he did.

"It doesn't matter if your bat pick-up is as wide as third slip or gully, if it comes down straight. If you find something unorthodox that works for you, you don't throw it away."
Chanderpaul experienced several moments at Lord's on Thursday that could have derailed lesser batsmen.

He was perilously close to being given out shouldering arms to a vicious James Anderson in-swinger, reprieved from a lbw death by an unlikely referral, should have been sent packing after being trapped on the front pad by Graeme Swann, and managed to run out the immensely talented Darren Bravo by the length of the entire pitch.

None of it appeared to make the slightest difference to his tempo or temperament. As wickets fell to Stuart Broad with percussive regularity at the other end, Chanderpaul just kept keeping on.

Thousands of miles away in India, his former team-mate Chris Gayle was working a very different kind of batting magic, smashing an astonishing 128 off 62 balls, including 13 sixes, in the IPL.

Chanderpaul is no-one's idea of a big-money IPL marquee man. It is no sort of failure, though. "He's such a calm individual, and he plays within himself," says Richards.

"If he was in a swimming pool, he'd always stay in water where he could keep his feet on the bottom.

"He just doesn't get flustered. Some batsmen, after that run-out with Bravo, would have thought that they owed something to the team, and gone hell for leather.

"As a batsman you have to put that out of your mind. Whether it's his fault or Bravo's, it doesn't matter once it's happened. What matters is the team. Settle down, play your natural game.

"His temperament is as good as anyone I've seen. I'm quite surprised the younger batsmen in the team haven't looked at his success and tried to replicate it.

"When he left the tour of India, there was a lot of talk that he had been sent a letter from those in power, saying he should think about packing it up and making room for some younger guys to come through. That is crazy.

"The West Indies need him so much, and he's got a way to go yet. He was never an aggressive player, so as the years go by it doesn't matter that his eyes are a little older. He lives well, lives healthily, and what he has achieved is a testament to his professionalism."

Some critics believe Chanderpaul is a little wasted coming in at five. With only Bravo above him a Test batsman of real class, wouldn't he be better facing more balls and ensuring he never runs out of partners again?

"Not at all," says Richards. "Whenever a guy's getting it done for you, leave them alone.

"We had the same issue with Jeff Dujon. Because he was such a flamboyant batsman, the thinking of some was that we should move him a little higher in the order. But often that doesn't work.

"You try to get your players in areas that will most benefit the team. And Chanderpaul is at his very best at five.

"I've been a fan of his for a long, long time, because he has held this West Indies team together."

The casual observer might imagine a relatively straight line between those two points. But for Anderson, named England Cricketer of the Year on Monday night, it has been anything but.

"In the last 18 months I've probably doubled my Test wicket tally, which tells you something about the first eight years of my career," he smiles.

"I always believed I could perform at the top level. I knew on my day that I could be brilliant. But there were a lot of times when I would be at the other end of the scale, and that scared me a little bit. I didn't know what was coming from day to day."

In 24 matches since the start of 2010, on pitches from Sydney to Southampton, Edgbaston to Abu Dhabi, he has taken 110 wickets at an average of just 23.74.

If it's a far cry from his days in Burnley's 3rd XI, when by his own admission he was picked as a specialist square leg fielder ("because my bowling wasn't up to much and my batting wasn't up to much"), it's also the culmination of several pivotal moments when his development as a bowler took a sudden leap forward.

In his 16 Tests before July 2007, Anderson had taken 46 wickets at an average of 38.39. In the nine Tests that followed he took 43 wickets at 30.58 and a much lower strike rate.

What changed? It began with a seemingly contradictory decision: stop searching for the magic ball.

"If you're in and out of the team, when you do picked the danger is that you try to be more attacking than you maybe should be," he explains.

"That summer against India was when I realised I could be consistent enough to succeed at the top level. I learned that you have to play the conditions. If the pitch and overhead conditions are in your favour then you can be attacking. If they're not, then not going for runs will bring you wickets."

Unloved and undermined by the regime of Duncan Fletcher and his bowling coach Troy Cooley, Anderson responded to the unequivocal backing of their successors Peter Moores and Andy Flower.

Consistency of selection brought consistent results. His next evolutionary leap? Learning how to bowl overseas.

"It was a big thing that was intimidating me," he tells me, perched in a commentary box overlooking a wet Old Trafford.

"I didn't really have a plan B to go to. That's something I worked really hard on with (Cooley's replacement) Ottis Gibson in the summer of 2010. I wanted to go to the Ashes knowing that I still had ways of taking wickets even if it wasn't moving around.

"When we played Pakistan that summer, I watched how Mohammad Asif got wickets with a scrambled seam.

"The seam normally comes down slightly wobbly, so everyone tries to bowl with it coming down perfectly straight. That's great if it's swinging, but if it's not, it won't move.

"If the seam is scrambled, it's got a chance of hitting either side of the seam and nipping off the pitch either way. I don't know if it's going to nip or not, and if I don't know the batsman doesn't know, and that's a great position to be in for a bowler."

Australia expected the same bowler who had taken five wickets at 82 in the previous Ashes series. Instead they were blown away by a man transformed; 24 scalps at 26.04 helped transform England from maybes to certainties.

Since November 2010, his bowling average away from England has fallen from 45.63 to 26.65. This winter, on spinner-friendly tracks in the UAE and Sri Lanka, he took 18 wickets at 24.

The learning process continues. Anderson used to have a major problem against left-handers. Before 2010, Anderson was going for 41 runs for every success against them. In the 2003 Test series against South Africa, Graeme Smith and Gary Kirsten took him for 276 runs while only being dismissed once between them.

Not any more. Smith will return to England this summer to face a bowler who, since the start of 2010, has dismissed left-handers 31 times at an average of just 20.87.

"Becoming more confident with the ball swinging across the left-hander was a huge thing for me. Being able to disguise which way the ball is swinging to them, a leftie can't line you up so easily - that was massive.

"Going round the wicket to left-handers was something that Ottis first suggested. It took me a while to learn how to swing it away, but it's a huge skill to have. Being a left-handed batsman myself I know how had that is to face.

"To be successful round the world you need as many weapons as possible. It gives me such confidence to know that I can go anywhere in the world and have the skills to take wickets."

Anderson collected the England player of the year award on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

With success on the pitch has come contentment off it. Anderson describes this as the most enjoyable England squad he's been part of, whether on the pitch or off it, immersed in epic contests of Call of Duty and Fifa 12 with Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan and Stuart Broad.

"Broady has a slight advantage because he's the only single guy in the team," he says. "When he's not playing cricket he's at home on his X-Box in a dark closet, with his projector up on the wall, headphones on, microphone up, talking to some six-year-old Americans as he plays them online.

"It's funny. On tour we basically act like kids. We play X-box and order room service. When you get home you almost have to start again, press the rest button and learn how to be dad again.

"You never completely lose that fatherly touch because you're always looking after guys like Bres and Broady, who struggle to survive in the real world.

"But it does make it hard. My three-year-old daughter Lola already doesn't like cricket, because if she hears the word mentioned she knows I'm generally going away for a while. It's a balancing act."

Anderson's lowest point came in 2006, when endless tinkering with his idiosyncratic action, initiated by Cooley and approved by both Fletcher and fast bowling purists like Bob Willis, ended in a stress fracture of the back.

He grimaces. "It was a strange situation, because I got 50 wickets in my first season of county cricket, and then three months later I was playing a one-day international with a different action.

"It's difficult enough bowling when you're not thinking about your action, but when you're thinking about where your arms and legs are going it's impossible.

"When the fracture happened I couldn't bowl for four months. All the way through that rehab you don't know how your body is going to react to the thing that caused the problem in the first place - bowling. And that's a scary process to go through."

He refuses to be drawn on whether he is now the best fast bowler in world cricket, insisting that the man most would consider his main rival, Dale Steyn is a very different bowler.

For the statistical record, it's a close thing. Since the beginning of 2007, Steyn has 240 Test wickets at an average of 21, Anderson 214 at 28. Since the start of 2010, Anderson has those 110 wickets at 21 to Steyn's 100 wickets at 21.

So what does taking one of those wickets feel like? How does an Englishman feel when he sends Ricky Ponting packing for a golden duck? Anderson grins.

"For a few seconds you get this big buzz in your head, and then you look up at the replay on the big screen and realise that you've legged it 30 metres towards the crowd, or done a stupid celebration that at the time you don't realise you're doing.
"It's amazing. It's hard to describe how good it feels."

On Thursday morning at 1045 BST, the familiar strains of "Soul Limbo" by Booker T and the MG's will mean the summer can officially begin.

Never does our Test Match Special theme tune seem more appropriate than when the West Indies are in town, although the weather recently has not exactly been Caribbean in flavour.

Our BBC cricket coverage has never really stopped since last summer, with a busy winter which took TMS from India to the United Arab Emirates and to Sri Lanka. Then we have been able to bring you for the first time our new, extended county coverage giving you a flavour of the Championship season which started back in the first week in April.

But of course there is always something extra special about the start of an international summer and it promises to be an exciting few months as cricket prepares to take its place in what will be the UK's biggest summer of sport.

Darren Sammy took over the West Indies captaincy from Chris Gayle in 2010. Photo: Getty

The Olympics will undoubtedly overshadow part of the cricketing summer, but the chance to lock horns with old rivals Australia, albeit in a one-day series, followed by a battle for the number one Test slot against South Africa are both mouth-watering prospects.

Plus, the hors d'oeuvre of the West Indies tour offers much, if the weather doesn't spoil the matches.

Although Darren Sammy's team are a long, long way from the great West Indies sides of the past, there have been a few green shoots showing in recent months.

The West Indies won their first away series in eight years in November and they have been involved in two thrilling matches against Australia and India which they should have won. They had a great opportunity to defeat the Aussies in Barbados in April before losing a nail-biter by three wickets and in November played an amazing game in Mumbai where India closed on 242-9 chasing 243 to win... another boring Test match draw!

Although the early part of their tour has been dogged by bad weather, batting collapses, visa issues and injury - if they can get their strongest team on the park, West Indies could provide some problems for England especially with the likes of exciting Brian Lara clone Darren Bravo, fast bowlers Kemar Roach and Fidel Edwards, spinners Narsingh Deonarine and Shane Shillingford, and old stager Shivnarine Chanderpaul who has just returned to the top of the ICC batting rankings.

England will start as favourites in the Tests with home advantage and conditions in their favour, but they must not show any complacency, and when it comes to the one-day matches then the tourists may have the edge with the gripping prospect of both a restored Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard among their batting line-up.

In terms of our line-up for the series we are delighted to be welcoming back the legendary Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards to the Test Match Special team. Viv may have just turned 60, but I doubt he has mellowed too much and is always fascinating to listen to about the state of Caribbean cricket. Being able to share a commentary box with one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Century will again be an honour - and I know when he walks onto the hallowed turf of Lord's on Thursday morning he'll still have the old swagger as if he owns the place!

Viv, of course, was one of Jonathan Agnew's Test victims... as he may mention a few times - and Aggers of course will be leading our team this summer.

He'll be joined at Lord's by the voice of West Indies cricket, Tony Cozier, and by Henry Blofeld who is fresh from describing multiple cranes on England's tour to the UAE. As well as Viv Richards, expert summaries will also come from former England captain Michael Vaughan, Phil Tufnell (another man to dismiss Viv in Test matches) and the irrepressible Geoff Boycott.

As well as ball-by-ball commentary we'll have plenty to enjoy during the intervals including our first "View from the Boundary" of the summer where legendary broadcaster "Whispering" Bob Harris will be joining Aggers to talk about his love of the game.

We'll meet the new man at the helm at Lord's, Derek Brewer, discover the inspirational story of the Compton Cricket Club which is doing amazing work in the United States, find out about links between cricket and the Olympics as Lord's prepares to host the 2012 archery competition and we'll have the highlights of the England Players of the Year awards which you'll be able to hear on Monday night with Michael Vaughan and Phil Tufnell on BBC Radio 5 live.

Talking about 5 live, Alison Mitchell and Alec Stewart will have all the news from Lord's every 15 minutes and Ian Payne presents 5 live Sport from the ground on Sunday.

The TMS text commentary will be at the heart of the action with Tom Fordyce behind the scenes at Lord's to bring you all the latest news and gossip, while bbc.co.uk/cricket will also be the place for columns from Jonathan Agnew and Alec Stewart as well as details of how you can download the Test Match Special podcast featuring Aggers and Geoff Boycott.

And as always we want to hear from you - via e-mail tms@bbc.co.uk, via Twitter @tmsproducer or via this blog.

Not long now... start humming it... "De de de, de de de-de de..."

"I haven't always been like this," he says, surprised. "It's something I've developed and worked on.

"As a young player I was actually quite a reckless batsman. I get bored quite easily, and I'd often try to hit the ball all round the ground. But as I got older I began to realise what batting was all about. I watched a lot of great players to see what you need to be successful at the top level."

He clearly found the answers. The 31-year-old has developed into England's best number three in a generation, an immovable presence in a pivotal position.

Trott's career has been an exercise in dedication to the craft of batting. Photo: Getty

Concentration at the crease has been transformed from flaw into career-defining asset. In Galle, Sri Lanka two months ago he batted for five and a half hours for England's first century of a troubled winter, and both of England's last two Ashes wins have been built on the foundation of big Trott tons in the deciding matches.

"I find it very helpful to work on the partnership in the middle," he explains. "You're a lot more powerful when you're playing as two in an innings. It can be quite lonely otherwise; it's you against 11 out there.

"You also have to think, 'I might not play here again, so I might as well enjoy it'. With my debut at The Oval [in August 2009 against Australia] - I got out in quite bizarre fashion in the first innings, hitting it straight to short leg and being run out. A lot of players would have been happy with 40, but I was really upset because it was the most fun I'd ever had playing cricket - 35,000 people cheering every run!

"You've got to be able to enjoy the battle. Sometimes you can have a fast bowler taking aim at your head or your feet at 150kph (more than 90mph), and you've got to be capable of dealing with it or you won't survive.

"You need the confidence in yourself to say, 'This is amazing, let's relish it.' You play best as a batsman when you don't try to premeditate what you're going to do, when you just go out there and trust your instinct, your hands. You'll find sometimes that you'll play three shots you didn't even know you had. Let the instincts take over."

Enjoyment is not a word you would readily associate with Trott at the crease. Satisfaction, certainly, but his near-obsessive routine of repeatedly taking guard and gouging a line in the turf has been interpreted as that of a man lost in nervous compulsion. Misconception number two.

"It comes from a lot of practice, from working out what suits me best," he says, looking out over the wet Edgbaston outfield from a hospitality suite high in the stands.

"The scratching the line has come from playing in England and batting out of my crease. I'd find that, on early season wickets, I'd be batting on middle stump when I should have been on leg or middle and leg, and I needed to be sure of my guard. I find too that the scratching helps me clear my mind. It helps it keep ticking."

Doesn't it present an easy target for endless sledging from the opposition?

"Yeah, but you get sledged about everything, anything that's a little different. If you're out there fielding it's almost like a red flag to a bull. They really go for it.

"But I think they're starting to get bored of it now, and I don't really care what they think. Everyone's got their ways that make them feel comfortable, and that's the most elusive place to be as a sportsman. Everyone wants to be there."

Trott has admitted in the past to being teased by some of his team-mates for the amount of time he spends in the nets.

"They don't mind me batting for a long time out in the middle," he points out. "Especially the bowlers.

"If I make people laugh then that's fine. Sometimes I'll be at the non-striker's end and I'll look up and see guys messing about, and I'll often wonder what's going on. But I'd much rather be in the middle batting than back in the dressing-room finding out."

Earlier in his career Trott was accused by Warwickshire's director of cricket Ashley Giles of being too selfish in his approach, finding satisfaction in his own successes rather than those of the team.

It's something he both admits to and feels has changed.

"I think you have to be selfish in some ways. Not to the detriment of the team, but selfish as meaning getting yourself right for the game. And being prepared. Doing your routines, and saying, 'No, I don't want to do that' because I have to be ready for a cricket match.

"Sometimes you'll miss out on some social time, or family time. You might turn down sponsors. But they will always be there if you're delivering in the sport.

"The way I'd like to gauge my career is how many series wins I've been involved in in Test and one-day cricket, more than how many hundreds I've scored.

"I do enjoy a stat or two about how many big partnerships I've been involved in - 100-run partnerships, 200 runs - because they are huge in winning big matches. I like that sort of stat rather than my own stats."

I ask him if he knows his current Test average.

"No."

Really?

"No."

Have a guess.

"Well, people keep telling me it's about 50." (It's 52.7)

What about the number of Test runs you've scored?

"I've got no idea. I think someone told me I was over 2,000, and I don't remember anyone telling me I was over 3,000."

The actual total is 2,319. "Brilliant," he says, deadpan.

Trott has been immersed in cricket since he can remember. As a child helping out in his father's sports shop in Cape Town he would sit out the back, knocking in bats and changing grips. His reward would be a set of gloves and bat of his own.

His dad would coach him after hours; his mother, a hockey and softball international, would work on his hand-eye coordination.

"I probably had something of an abnormal childhood, because everything was about sport. At the weekends a lot of friends would go to the movies or go swimming at the beach, but I was always at the cricket club, the hockey pitch or the softball club. School took a bit of a backseat.

"I grew up playing sport against adults from a young age, and I think I benefited enormously from that."

As an adult himself, he settled immediately whenever stepping up a level. On his debut for Warwickshire second XI he scored 245, on his first-team bow 134. In the second innings of that Oval Test debut came his match-winning 119.

"You're always finding things that work for you, and after a good innings you can think, hey, I did that really well, I felt really good when I did this," he says.

"You try to take that into the next innings. You always have the things you try not to do, and you have the things you consciously try to do.

"Those are your core values. You don't stray too far away; you tinker. It's really important to any top player. You ask a Ponting or Tendulkar, and they have key things they work on all the time."

Trott's father now coaches at St John's school in Leatherhead. Despite his son's successes he still phones up occasionally with advice.

"I think he's a bit scared now," smiles Trott. "When he does I always take it in. The other week, before Warwickshire played up at Liverpool, he came to the nets here at Edgbaston and threw a few balls at me.

"He's a very good coach and he loves it. It's something of an art how he gets his points across."

The younger Trott is now a father himself. One of the most touching moments of the last Ashes tour came in the aftermath of England's innings thrashing of Australia at the MCG, when Trott walked his wife Abi and then two-month-old daughter Lilly out to the middle, the ground now empty, to show them where he had scored his match-turning 168.

The insight works both ways. Abi is apparently able to predict, with great accuracy, how many runs he will score, simply by watching him walk out to bat. He grins. "It's quite spooky sometimes."

Trott also believes his young family has helped him develop as an international cricketer as well as a man.

"It's definitely changed me," he admits, "The emphasis on yourself and cricket doesn't go out of the window, but it becomes a bit less.

"Sometimes you can get wound up and take things a little too seriously. Cricket is hugely important. It's my job and something I really take pride in, but you take pride in being a husband and father.

"Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice and spend a little extra time in the gym or the nets when you could be at home. But there are also times when it probably does you good to stay away from the nets. Even me."

It was at 13 minutes past five on 15 September when Lancashire supporters were finally able to celebrate a first outright Championship title for 77 years.

A county campaign which began in April was decided in the last few minutes of the final day of the season. It was one of the most dramatic climaxes in the long history of the Championship and will live long in the memory.

The title headed the way of the Red Rose county courtesy of a last-gasp victory at Somerset. A few moments before the winning runs were struck at Taunton, news filtered in from the Rose Bowl that closest rivals Warwickshire had only drawn their match with Hampshire, so the champagne could be put on ice.

It again showed that despite its detractors and despite the endless reforms, reports and reviews of the county game the product can still be gripping. The 2011 attendance figures show almost a 10% increase through the turnstiles with more than 500,000 people watching Championship cricket last year. Not really the "one man and his dog" cliche.

Lancashire won last year's County Championship for the first time since 1934. Photo; Getty

It's also true that just because crowds aren't always enormous for every game, it doesn't mean people are not interested.

This is shown week in, week out by the phenomenal success of the BBC local radio cricket commentaries which cover the majority of matches through the season. On Thursday, when the 2012 Championship season gets under way, commentary teams up and down the UK will swing back into action bringing loyal listeners all the latest news of their teams. It's an incredible service that is provided and I am delighted to say this year there are going to be greater efforts to spread the word.

Radio 5 live sports extra is joining forces with BBC local radio to broadcast the best of the action on digital radio, digital television and online worldwide.

When possible, county commentary is going to be carried on Radio 5 live sports extra this season with regular updates and scores from all the games, plus features and interviews showcasing the domestic game.

This will start on Thursday 12 April, where there will be commentary on the London derby between the two newly promoted sides Middlesex and Surrey at Lord's. You'll be able to hear your BBC London favourites Mark Church, Kevin Hand and Johnny Barran, while Alison Mitchell and Kevin Howells will keep listeners up to date with matches elsewhere. Plus, expect the odd famous name to pop in over the four days to join in the fun.

Of course from time to time Radio 5 live sports extra will have to leave for coverage of other major sporting events - but the commentary will continue online so you hopefully won't miss any of the action.

All the details of which games will be covered will be at www.bbc.co.uk/cricket as normal. This will also be the site to check out regularly for scores, interviews and features. Kevin Howells and the team will continue to report regularly over on Radio 5 live and it is worth following Kevin on Twitter @kevinhowellsbbc to help keep across the latest county stories.

And listen out for some further announcements about more live cricket coming your way this summer - not to mention the new year-long TMS Podcast which will feature the domestic game as well as all the international action.

I can't promise the same sort of exciting county season as last year with a final day climax - but I can promise if it happens the BBC will be there to cover it.

Well if those romantics did not get the result they wished for in the first Test, they should at least be pleased with the venue for the second because the P Sara Stadium is an enchanting location.

To give it its full name, the Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu Stadium is the oldest cricket ground in Sri Lanka and is home to the Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club.

The ground was famous for having a female curator named Amravati who worked at the P Sara for 40 years. Although she is long retired, her sister Saroja continues to be involved.

It is a little rough around the edges and there is clearly a last-gasp effort to get things ready in time for Tuesday's 10am start, but the ground has a wonderful aura of history.

When I visited, the scoreboard was showing a team total of 631 and when I asked one of the current groundsman what the wicket was like he just looked at me and said "it's for the batsman". I asked him whether England should play two frontline spinners and he said "it doesn't matter"!

England captain Andrew Strauss will hope to cash in on a pitch which may favour the batsmen. Photo: Getty

We have previously been told conditions here may favour the seamers with talk that England could consider dropping Monty Panesar and play both Steve Finn and Tim Bresnan alongside Anderson and Swann - we will await the team sheets with interest on Tuesday.

England's first visit to this ground was 30 years ago when they played against Sri Lanka in their inaugural Test.

If you visit the nostalgic bar, the Oval Taverners, you can see lots of memorabilia from that occasion.

But the ground's history stretches back much further than that. There are pictures of Garry Sobers returning to the pavilion after scoring a century and, when the stadium was known as the Colombo Oval, it hosted Don Bradman's 1948 Australians for a match against an All Ceylon XI.

The Taverners bar has several photographs from that occasion with the Don dressed immaculately in suit and hat as he goes out into the middle for the toss with legendary local captain Mahadevan Sathasivam.

Although Bradman never toured South Africa, India, New Zealand or the West Indies he actually played in Sri Lanka twice, with the country used for many years as a location for Australian teams travelling to England to take a break.

The ground is now more than 120 years old and, as well as hosting Bradman and the inaugural Test, it was also the location for Sri Lanka's first Test victory when they defeated India in 1985.

A steady stream of Sri Lanka players have learnt their cricket at the venue - including record breaking spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan, former captain Tillakaratne Dilshan, and the hero of the first Test Rangana Herath.

There are old-fashioned low level stands on one side of the ground and grass banks on the other, where the England fans should enjoy the sunshine on Tuesday.

The P Sara only has a capacity of around 7,000, so if the same number of England supporters who were in Galle turn up this week they may struggle to get in. And, unlike Galle, there is no Fort to retreat to where you can watch the action for free.

It's a very important match for England, who have to win to avoid losing their number one status in Test match cricket. If they lose they would complete a miserable winter of five successive Test defeats and could fall behind Australia to number three in the rankings before the start of the summer.

It is also a critical match for under-pressure England captain Andrew Strauss, who is facing the greatest scrutiny since he took over the job. Four months ago he was being shortlisted for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year, but now he faces question marks over his future.

It all makes for a fascinating match and Test Match Special will be on the air at 0515 BST on Tuesday morning with Jonathan Agnew, Simon Mann and Roshan Abeysinghe. Geoff Boycott and Vic Marks will provide expert analysis alongside former Sri Lanka batsman Russel Arnold who is joining us with Michael Vaughan Augusta-bound where he will be working for BBC television at the Masters Golf.

As well as ball-by-ball commentary during the intervals we will be finding out more about the history of the ground, remembering the inaugural Test with guests including Graham Gooch and looking ahead to the start of the County Championship season which gets under way this week.

An emphatic opening victory marred by accusations of "cheating" with an England player talking about "wanting to kill" one of the opposition, a thrilling run chase as darkness began to fall at the SSC and a game disrupted by reports of a cobra by the boundary edge and a two foot lizard on the outfield. At one stage I thought about sending for David Attenborough rather than Jonathan Agnew.

And the drama is unlikely to diminish as the tour moves the 116 kilometres from Colombo down to Galle, a location which has been in the headlines many times over the past few years for events both on and off the field.

The Galle International Cricket Stadium is one of the most iconic venues in world cricket with the 200 year old UNESCO protected Dutch Fort providing a stunning backdrop and the Indian Ocean in the distance. Then at the other side of the ground you look down on the hustle and bustle of the bus station and local markets with traders selling a vast array of spices and freshly caught fish.

England have twice staged superb rear guard fightbacks in Galle

But the biggest event in Galle took place on the 26th December 2004. A terrifying Tsunami swept through the ground destroying the stadiums pavilions and wrecking the pitches before causing horrendous damage in the town and surrounding areas. An estimated 40,000 people died in Sri Lanka because of that terrible event.

When we were last in Galle we heard some amazing stories from some of the boys from the Harrow school in England who were playing cricket on the ground that day. They were forced to scramble to the top of the stands to escape the flowing waters.

The Tsunami and its aftermath threatened the future of the stadium and it needed help from the likes of Sir Ian Botham and Shane Warne to push for its reconstruction.
In fact England's last visit to Galle in December 2007 marked its return as an international venue with work taking place through the night to get the ground ready in time.

England escaped with a draw in that game thanks to an Alastair Cook century despite conceding a first innings lead of 418. Four years previously they had pulled off an even more remarkable rear guard action with Ashley Giles remaining defiant as England survived with nine wickets down.

That game nine years ago was my first Test in charge of TMS abroad and it had an eventful beginning from my point of view.

On the eve of the match not only did we not have any broadcast lines - we had absolutely nowhere to broadcast from.

I had been promised a platform was being built for TMS but as night fell at the ground not a scaffold piece was in sight. Eventually at about 10pm I had to give up and go back to the hotel ready to spend the night fretting about whether anything would be in place in the morning. I was at the ground by 6am and amazingly our platform had appeared - but we still had no power or lines as play approached. We managed to get on air 20 seconds before the first ball was bowled - but only because Jonny Saunders had physically dragged an electrician from the other side of the ground whilst Jonathan Agnew and I somehow lashed together a satellite link.

But even that wasn't as stressful for Aggers as his Galle experience in 2001 where he famously ended up broadcasting from the Dutch fort.

When he and the BBC team arrived at the stadium they were refused entry by armed guards after the Sri Lankan Board demanded "access fees" for them to broadcast

So Aggers, Pat Murphy and co were forced to decamp to the turrets with a 100 feet sheer drop just in front of them where fortunately they still had a good view of the cricket plus a supply of king coconut juice and plenty of iguanas and snake charmers for company.

Meanwhile my predecessor Peter Baxter spent the day outside the main gate in temperatures of 115 degrees frantically negotiating to get the BBC team back into the ground.

I am sincerely hoping that my Galle experience on Monday is less frantic... although it could be an interesting Test match with the last game at the ground a lively affair with Australia winning a low scoring thriller on a pitch described as "poor" by the ICC.

Test Match Special will be on the air from 0515 on 5 live Sports Extra and at 0530 on Radio 4 Long Wave while bbc.co.uk/cricket will have text commentary throughout plus columns from Aggers, Alec Stewart and other features. And If you miss any of the action check out the TMS highlights show on Sports Extra or the TMS Podcast.

There are few stronger things that a cricketer can say about a fellow player than to call them a "cheat" let alone using language like wanting "to kill the batsman".

England coach Andy Flower is an exceptionally calm individual who is always measured about what he says in public and although his comments about the need to respect the "opposition" were not made in direct response to Swann's "cheat" allegation, I think it's fair to assume that is probably what he was getting at.

He also made the comment that England players have to be very careful preaching about "walking" because it's not necessarily the case that they are all the first to leave the crease before an umpire's finger goes up.

But there has been some coverage of the row in the local media.

England continue their preparations for the Test series with a three-day match against a Sri Lanka Cricket Development XI in Colombo on Tuesday. Photo: Getty

The Island newspaper have run an interview with Perera under the banner "poms are whinging". Perera is quoted as saying "I wasn't sure of the catch and the umpires weren't sure of the catch as well. So I stood my ground. I can't understand why they are making an issue out of it".

He also brought up other incidents in the game where he said the Board XI were on the wrong end of decisions and says "these things happen in cricket and I think England are barking up the wrong tree".

But although there is unlikely to be any long-lasting effects from this rumpus it is true sometimes early tour incidents can set a tone.

On the 2001 tour here Darren Gough was reported for using abusive language in the opening fixture, then a race row erupted at a game in Matara when another player named Perera, this time Ruchira, was accused of using a slur towards Craig White before Gough again was seen wagging his finger at an umpire during a practice match in Kurunegala.

There followed a highly acrimonious Test series with controversial umpiring and an onfield row between Michael Atherton and Kumar Sangakarra with both players reprimanded by the match referee. The captains had to have a meeting before the final Test to try and calm down the situation.

It would be highly unfortunate if the incident at the Premadasa stadium on Saturday was any kind of precursor to any trouble ahead - but the intensity England showed in that match demonstrates how desperately they want to succeed out here and perhaps how difficult it can be to keep your cool when the thermostat reaches 34C plus.

You don't know me, although I do know you. Actually, I don't really know you, but like hundreds of millions of others, I think I do. Which is why you can't leave the house. Sorry about that, but take it as a compliment: that's what happens when you are one of 'the few'.

What, you might ask, are 'the few'? Well, the way I see it, 'the few' are those sportspeople so great - the greatest of the great, if you will - that they can't even pop out for... well, anything actually, for fear of being trampled to death in Morrisons (or wherever it is celebrities pretend they do their shopping in India).

If it's any consolation, we've got a bloke in our country - well, he used to live here, before he outgrew Morrisons - called David Beckham, who might know how you feel. But, between me and you, with Becks, it's as much about his looks, which means he's not strictly one of 'the few' at all, more a very good footballer who they let in because he has a nice face.

Remember Maggie Thatcher? You probably don't, you were only a kid at the time, but she was our Prime Minister when you first toured England with India in 1990. The reason I mention her is that there used to be this great piece of graffiti on a wall somewhere in London which read: THATCHER OUT. To which someone had added: LBW B ALDERMAN.

My point being, Terry Alderman, who made Graham Gooch look silly in the 1989 Ashes, was still playing Test cricket when you started out - and he made his first-class debut in 1974. And now, 22 years after you made your Test debut (when I was 13, probably acting the goat in double history) you're still around. That, my friend, is what you call 'longevity'.

I saw you play at The Oval in 1990. Well, I saw you field. David Gower, a childhood hero, scored a ton that day. We loved Gower in England, thought he was great, but he wasn't one of 'the few', he just made us think he was with that gorgeous cover drive of his.

Of course, what I know now is that greatness is about more than looking willowy at the crease - it's far more about sheer weight of numbers. And while the unfurling of Gower's strokes resembled honey dripping off the back of a spoon, numbers-wise, he is but a delicate butterfly crushed under your steel-rimmed wheel. Then again, who isn't?

Brian Lara, maybe? Sorry to bring him up in the middle of what is essentially a love letter, but that lad could bat a bit, too. And many said he scored his runs with more style than you: as languid as Gower, but as rapacious as Bradman when it came to making runs.

But Lara called it quits five years ago, while you're still here after 22 years of unrelenting pressure, shouldering the expectations of billions, and it never managed to diminish you. When you call it a day, it will be on your own terms, and even some of your fellow 'few' (Lara, Diego Maradona, Babe Ruth) weren't able to do that.

They say things have got easier for batsmen in recent years - flatter tracks, smaller boundaries, not as many wicked fast bowlers on the prowl. But you made your debut against Wasim and Waqar and played against pretty much all the recent greats - Ambrose and Walsh, Donald and Pollock, McGrath and Warne, Muralitharan. You even played Test cricket against Sir Richard Hadlee, for pity's sake, and old 'Paddles' is now in his sixties.

You had a bit of a blip a few years back, in 2006, when England's quicks got after you and you kept getting hit. It was a bit like watching Muhammad Ali being bashed round the ring by a thrusting Larry Holmes. But while Ali was shot to pieces by that point, the following year you racked up 776 Test runs at an average of 55.4. Not much of a blip.

You know what somebody said to me the other day? "Tendulkar - great player, little bit dull." Bit out of order, to be honest. Dull - why? Because you don't abuse opponents? Or get boozed up in nightclubs? In more than two decades at the pinnacle of your sport, under the glare of more than a billion adoring countrymen and women, there has been barely a hint of controversy. That doesn't just make you a little wonder, that makes you pretty much a miracle.

This is getting a little bit embarrassing now - a little bit This Is Your Life, I didn't mean to come over all mawkish. But the thing is - and this is another thing that elevates you above the merely great - it is doubtful whether we will see your like again, because after you've gone, cricket, which is threatening to splinter into a thousand parts, may never be the same.

To play 188 Test matches... well, the mind boggles. And given the indifference towards Test cricket from many modern fans, surely no-one in the future will come close. Which means you could be one of Test cricket's last true superstars - like silent movie stars before 'talkies', a titan from a more innocent, more romantic, seemingly more lustrous age.

You know what someone once said about Chaplin? "It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most". Given how long you've been on the job, given how many people there are in your country and given the grinding poverty many of them still live in, I reckon you might just have trumped him. Which is why I wanted to say thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Benjamin (you don't know me)

Broadcasting Test Match Special in this country has also brought its challenges over the years. This is my fourth trip to what is known as the "tear drop isle" and there have been a few hairy moments since my first visit here nearly 10 years ago.

My first international match in charge of Test Match Special was in Sri Lanka back in 2003, a one-day international played in Dambulla.

England's Test captain Andrew Strauss made his international debut in that match - but it's not a game he'll remember fondly as he was dismissed for three as England were skittled for 88.

Things weren't much easier up in the TMS commentary box that day.

England's bowlers and fielders will have to find ways of keeping cool in Sri Lanka. Picture: Getty Images

I had always imagined that life as a BBC cricket producer abroad would be rather romantic, sitting back in some exotic location watching England in action. The reality was not quite the same!

When I arrived in Dambulla there was no sign of any broadcast lines, so the only way we were able to get on air was via a small satellite. However I had a nightmare trying to get a good enough signal, so I ended up balancing a very expensive piece of equipment on a piece of scaffolding - with me hanging onto it throughout the broadcast.

But that was the least of my problems. The stadium in Dambulla is situated in the middle of the jungle and with this game being played under lights, it attracted literally millions of insects. So there I was, holding onto the satellite with both hands while my body was being bitten to pieces by bugs.

My first Test match in Galle wasn't much easier on that trip, with the platform on which we were broadcasting not being built until the game had actually started, and in Colombo I remember doing a match at the Premadasa Stadium where we were literally blown off air by the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard.

Hopefully we will avoid such drama at the Premadasa this week as England begin their tour with a three-day game at the ground against a Sri Lanka Board XI.

But there will be plenty of interest in both this match and the three day game at the Sinhalese Sports Club as England wrestle with what their starting XI should be for the first Test in Galle, starting on 26 March.

Andrew Strauss told me today that no-one has a guaranteed place for the Test and urged his players to make an unanswerable claim to be picked during these two warm-up games.

He said the balance of the side will depend partly on the form of the bowlers and how they will cope with the challenging conditions.

The most likely scenario is that Ravi Bopara will replace the dropped Eoin Morgan and England will stick with two spinners and two seamers. But they could decide to play Nottinghamshire all-rounder Samit Patel at six to give them a different bowling option or even promote wicketkeeper Matt Prior to six, with perhaps Tim Bresnan playing to help bolster the lower order.

It is rather unsatisfactory that this will be only a two-Test series and who knows what state the Sri Lanka team may be in. After a long one-day series in Australia they are currently involved in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh and may not even arrive back here in Sri Lanka until three days before the Test.

We expect a large Barmy Army contingent here, but I am not sure how many locals will watch with the cheapest ticket priced at 5,000 Sri Lanka rupees, which works out at £25, and some tickets nearer £40.

I mention that traditionally Sri Lanka offers flat pitches, but the surface at Galle was last year reported by the match referee for offering too much for the spinners, and the P Sara Oval in Colombo has a reputation for being helpful to seam bowlers so after some unexpectedly dramatic games in the UAE we could be in for a lively affair here as well.

There is also the weather factor. The driver who picked me up at the airport yesterday cheerfully informed me that we are in the middle of the monsoon season here in Sri Lanka, with the Galle area especially likely to receive long periods of rain.

But let's hope he's wrong and we'll have plenty of cricket for you to enjoy over the next few weeks.

They'll be reports on the warm-up games on BBC Radio 5 live and this website as well as the Today programme and via Twitter @tmsproducer.

Then, alongside the website live text commentary, join our commentary team of Jonathan Agnew, Simon Mann, Roshan Abeysinghe, Michael Vaughan, Geoff Boycott and Vic Marks from 0415 GMT on 26 March. And if you can't make it that early, don't worry we'll have our new highlights programme and the TMS podcast to help you catch up.

These are the words with which Jonathan Agnew greeted me when I joined him for a drink on Saturday night.

Although Aggers was clearly speaking more than a little tongue in cheek, the nature of England's capitulation in Abu Dhabi did bring back some horrible memories of infamous England collapses.

Trinidad in 1994 when Ambrose and Walsh skittled England out for 46, The Gabba in 2002 where England were bowled out by McGrath and co for 79 or, more recently, Jamaica 2009 when Jerome Taylor blew away England for 51, all spring to mind.

That is why the events of Saturday afternoon and last week in Dubai have taken us by surprise.

Nobody said that this series against a much-improved Pakistan side was going to be easy and it was always more than possible England might lose. But it's the nature of the defeat which has been most striking.

Defeat in Dubai may lead to England losing their number one ranking if South Africa are able to whitewash New Zealand. Photo: Getty

Saturday is the sort of day in the Test Match Special box when the speed of events can make the producer's life rather tricky. The ends of games are always the most difficult to deal with because you have to worry about getting the programme off air, sorting out post-match interviews and servicing the numerous BBC outlets looking for reaction.

Then there are the practicalities such as organising transport for the commentators and de-rigging all the equipment.

This can be a challenge at the best of times but normally you have a little notice that the end is nigh. But when five wickets fall in 11 balls suddenly you have to react rather more quickly. So as England's batsmen were capitulating in the middle I was negotiating whether we could move the shipping forecast so Long Wave listeners didn't miss the end of the game, liaising with Five Live and the World Service, who both wanted Michael Vaughan for immediate reaction, briefing Alison Mitchell about possible questions for Andrew Strauss and organising our transport to get to the ground much earlier than planned.

I was also searching for Geoff Boycott so that he was in position ready to deliver his verdict on the TMS Podcast and, to be honest, I wasn't quite sure what mood he might be in. Firstly, Andrew Samson our scorer had found out that the only other time England had lost a Test chasing less than 150 in the last 100 years was Wellington 1978 - when Geoff had been captain. Then there was the little matter of what Boycott had said in the previous night's podcast. He was so confident of an England win he had staked his house on it. "Which one?" asked Aggers. "All three," replied Boycott. Now I was being flooded with Tweets and emails from listeners asking if they could have one of his properties while Dave Downing messaged me: "Will Geoff Boycott use a stick of rhubarb to knock in the "For Sale" signs?"

Fortunately Boycs took all this in great humour, but he was in no laughing mood when discussing what he thought of England's batting later.

Although huge praise must go to Pakistan for the way they have played in the first two Tests, it's a shame that when the third Test gets under way on Friday it's not a series decider. You can imagine a few more members of the Barmy Army might have made late bookings to come out here had the series been level. However, the performance of Misbah Ul Haq's side might encourage a large crowd from the Pakistani community here in Dubai on the first day. England's thre-day demise in the first Test denied the locals any play during their weekend.

But although the series is over England will be desperate to win the game for lots of reasons. They will obviously want to stop the rot after a deeply disappointing winter so far. But also their number one ranking could be at stake. If England lose in Dubai then South Africa will be able to overtake them with a 3-0 series win in New Zealand. This could be a costly business as well because the team which lies number one on 1 April will win a jackpot from the ICC worth $175,000.

Our coverage of the final Test gets under way on 5 live Sports Extra and Radio 4 Long Wave at 0545 on Friday where as well as our ball-by-ball coverage we'll be finding out what the secret is to Pakistan's recent success. Kevin Howells will present the second part tracing county cricket's greatest characters and Alison Mitchell will be discovering a corner of a foreign field which is forever England, Australia, Pakistan, through the amazing work at the ICC Global Cricket Academy.

Don't forget that if you miss our commentary you will be able to download the TMS Podcast and I must recommend our daily highlights show on 5 live Sports Extra.

But will we be bringing good news to England or Pakistan fans? As Aggers reminded me on Saturday night, I have been extremely fortunate to look after TMS during a golden period for the England Test team and the two Andys will be hoping the last fortnight is just a blip.