The revving, fizzing, whirring excellence of Ecclestone

Three overs into Sophie Ecclestone's spell at the Khettarama, there is a three-way dead heat.

- Two of her three overs had been maidens.
- Both those maidens also brought a wicket each, bringing the wickets column up to two.
- She had also conceded two runs in the non-maiden over, even if one of those was down to a misfield.

So 23 overs into Sri Lanka's innings, they are on 98 for 3, and Ecclestone has figures of 3-2-2-2. Subtract those Ecclestone figures from the overall score, and Sri Lanka are 96 for 1 after 20 - one big over away from being ahead of the required rate, with plenty of batting in hand. Instead, having gone confidently enough through the first 18 overs, they have hit heavy scrub. Ecclestone, the world's top-ranked bowler, awaits, a rock python on a low branch. Having struck twice, she's in the process of constricting this innings.

There is no batter in this Sri Lanka top order that appears to have the capacity to breathe when they are facing Ecclestone. This track is taking turn, but there is something Ecclestone is doing that no one else had for 68 previous overs in this match. She tosses them up from an already-high release point, puts big revs on the ball, replete with overspin. The lines are impeccable. The bounce is steep.

The right-hand batters are finding her especially impossible to play, the ball hanging in the air one moment, then diving and jiving away the next. The best spinners make batters doubt their judgment of length, of line, and of time. Sri Lanka's batters quickly find themselves entirely unsure of how to handle this spell, stuck between needing to score off Ecclestone because her early overs have put them so far behind the rate, and daring not take on a bowler who is manipulating the ball so skilfully through the air.

After two further overs, Ecclestone's figures have - incredibly - improved. She has three maidens in five overs. Only two further runs scored off her. Oh, and there was another wicket - Kavisha Dilhari attempting a favoured sweep, only for the ball to sneak under the bat like a skink under the garden gate.

The innings continues to be asphyxiated. Ecclestone bowls unchanged for ten overs. Sri Lanka's innings never takes a real breath again.

"She's No. 1 in the world for good reason," captain Nat Sciver-Brunt said later. "It's pretty special to have a player like her. It took her a little longer to come on to bowl today. They had the left-handers in and I thought I'd try and get [offspinner] Alice Capsey into the game a little bit earlier."

Ecclestone's first over was the 19th of the innings, and she was the sixth England bowler used.

"But Sophie bided her time, and made it look very easy," Sciver-Brunt said. "Her skill-execution was brilliant, and she got the rewards for what she put in. She's an experienced player in our side, and a leader in our spin attack."

Ecclestone is not the first spinner to prosper at the Khettarama, of course. This track has been one of spin-bowling's great limited-overs strongholds for more than 30 years now, many epic defences of meagre scores having been staged here. But she is the first England spinner to collude so successfully with this particular stretch of clay.

This was England women's first match at this venue, which has rarely been used for international women's cricket. But England men, who have played 12 matches here (and won as many as two!), have never had a spinner take more than two wickets in a match. Usually it is the England batters groping unfruitfully outside off stump and blinking in bewilderment at clattered wickets, while Sri Lanka whoop themselves to another victory.

To underscore just how sensationally she was bowling, Ecclestone takes out the prize left-hand batter with perhaps her best ball of an excellent evening. Chamari Athapaththu had retired hurt with cramps in the sixth over, and only returned to bat after the third wicket fell. But that meant she was walking into the maws of this Ecclestone spell, and soon found her own innings suffocated, playing out five dot balls out of six against Ecclestone before being bowled by the seventh. This one fizzes its way through outside off, dips, grips, and wriggles its way between Athapaththu's bat and pad to find middle stump.

Ecclestone had just taken out the opposition's star batter, but as with everything else in this spell, she did this with nonchalance, like she was only mowing a lawn, or painting a wall. By the end, her figures read 10-3-17-4. An England spinner bowling on some sacred spin-bowling turf as if she was born to it.