Source:-thetimes.co.uk After a moment of high comedy during Sri Lanka’s innings at Durham, when the running between the wickets resembled a Laurel and Hardy slapstick routine, the cameras panned to Mickey Arthur. Hands on hips, lips curled, Sri Lanka’s coach looked momentarily like a temping schoolteacher put in charge of a class he did not recognise nor could control. Another fine mess, he seemed to be thinking, or, to put it more bluntly, in today’s lingo: “WTAF?” In mid-innings confusion during the first ODI against England, Chamika Karunaratne and Binura Fernando, two wet-behind-the-ears internationals, found themselves at the same end. A bullet throw from Liam Livingstone in the deep burst through Jonny Bairstow’s gloves, to give rise to a rush to see who could win the scramble to the non-striker’s end first. It was just one snapshot of a difficult day, for sure, but it encapsulated the decline in the basics ...

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