Flaccid finish tarnishes England win

Silverware on the subcontinent, but today's defeat has undermined the achievement © Getty Images

In the end the allure of history was no match for the futility of dead-rubber syndrome. A resounding 4-1 series win was well within England's grasp when their excellent and unstinting bowlers rolled the Sri Lankans over for 211; instead their batsmen faltered, and not for the first time in this series if truth be told. Still, Dilhara Fernando's career-best figures of 6 for 27 meant that England were not only done and dusted in good time for this evening's "Le Crunch" in Paris, they were able to catch the second half at Wembley as well.

Perhaps that's an unduly cynical reaction to what has been a hugely successful foray into uncharted waters for the majority of this squad. But today's capitulation implied that the players felt they had done enough hard work for one tour, and no-one epitomised better the flaccidity of the collapse than Kevin Pietersen, for whom this trip has been a pretty ordinary affair.

Pietersen is a canny operator. His ability to save his best for when it most matters has ensured that every brickbat that has been lobbed his way in the last three years has been swatted away with interest. But his performance on this tour was distracted at best and negligent at worst. His tally of 112 runs at 28.00 was salvaged by a timely 63 not out in the victory stroll at Colombo on Wednesday, but other than that he's not been at the races whatsoever - not even during the World Twenty20 in South Africa where his brilliantly dismissive performance against Zimbabwe was balanced by a crass display against New Zealand.

But what does it say of cricket when a man as ruthlessly driven as Pietersen is struggling to raise his game to the requisite level? It says everything, quite frankly. Even Ricky Ponting, who is possibly the only player in the world who could out-do KP in a tussle of desire, was off-the-boil mentally at the Twenty20s last month, and his team had just returned from a five-month break. England and Pietersen have been on the go non-stop for almost two years now. The shock of this series victory must not be allowed to disguise the grind to which the players are subjected.

It was England's bowlers who won this series hands-down - three seamers in James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad, plus a returning spinner in Graeme Swann, for whom the international experience is new and exhilarating (or in Anderson's case, newly exhilarating after three years as Duncan Fletcher's spare part). Of the batsmen, Owais Shah made an attractive 82, Alastair Cook made a gritty 80, and Pietersen that aforementioned 63. No-one else passed fifty, and aside from the frisky Phil Mustard, only Pietersen and Shah had strike-rates above 60. One-day series, even on Sri Lanka's low pitches, are rarely this attritional

Earlier this week Pietersen renewed his warning about burn-out, and this time his comments deserve to be heeded. Although England deserved their moment of glory as they bounced about on the podium, tomorrow's papers will be so chock-full of rugby and football that even a fourth victory would have earned no more than half a page in the most devoted broadsheet.

Doubtless Pietersen recognises that. In the absence of any real rest in the modern international game, he's allowing his game-brain a bit of shut-eye while the rest of the world averts their gaze. In a little over a month's time, England return for a three-Test series and then we'll see how his mental approach adapts to the challenge. If he's still walking across his stumps when Muttiah Muralitharan returns to the fray, then perhaps it will be time to panic about his form slump.

All the same, this trip has ensured that the priority of Tests over ODIs has been restored. Up until the 1990s, England used to use their one-day matches as warm-ups for the five-day game, but since the proliferation of ODIs that opportunity has been lost. This series, however, and the strangely Test-tempo at which it has been played, has given several key performers a very handy insight into conditions. If those four bowlers - Sidebottom, Anderson, Broad and Swann - help deliver England's first major subcontinental Test win since 2000-01, and if Pietersen casts aside his indifference to post a match-winning 250-ball hundred, then retrospectively, this peculiar little tour will take on immeasureably greater significance.