The big danger now is this loss can eat away at some England players

Losing this Test will take some getting over for England. For 90 per cent of the match they thought they were winning and had it in the bag.

Everything was going their way and on the last morning they were favourites to win. Remember, the ball was jumping, turning and behaving unpredictably. England will be going over and over how they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The big danger is that it could eat away at some of the players. Fortunately for England they cannot dwell on it for too long as they will be in the thick of it again on Friday when the second Test starts.

That hands them an opportunity to redeem themselves quickly and to save the series. I take my hat off to England for sticking together and deciding to play in difficult circumstances. But it is a kick in the guts to lose.

Even with Kevin Pietersen as captain, all the upbeat talk in the world will not cover up this defeat. We saw a pitch that was under–prepared, mainly because the groundsman did not have enough time to work on the surface and get it to bind together. The good thing for the batsmen was that it was slow and got slower.

These days, unless you play regularly in Sri Lanka or India, you do not come across a pitch like this very often. I grew up on them in the 1960s. We used to get a number of them in county cricket.

In Kent, Essex, and Yorkshire where they used a lot of grounds, often they were just club or park pitches. On this type of slow, unpredictable turning surface the hardest time for a batsman is at the start of his innings.

That is when you are vulnerable because the ball is turning and doing things. But once you get in, because it is so slow, you have time to wait and pick the length. As confidence grows it becomes much easier to bat.

I thought Andrew Strauss was absolutely superb and he played perfectly on this type of pitch. He came in, occupied the crease and made the bowlers work hard and wore them down. He was very careful in his shot selection. He stayed on the back foot and came forward only when he had to ''the old English adage of" if in doubt, play forward's.