It was days like this that persuaded Edvard Munch to paint The Scream, Thomas Hardy to write Jude The Obscure and Leonard Cohen to pick up a guitar. And it has been days like this that have persuaded many captains that the time has come to step down.
This was a day during which the pressure uponAlastair Cook mounted. It mounted when Matt Prior put down a chance to dismiss MS Dhoni before he had added to his overnight total. It mounted when Moeen Ali was unable to fill the role of controlling spinner. And it mounted when he saw his champion fast bowler, James Anderson, thrashed for six back over his head by a tailender who started the match with a Test average of 3.33 amid an agonising tenth-wicket partnership that left England exhausted, embarrassed and exposed.
But it culminated in Cook's own dismissal. Finally given the opportunity to make use of a pitch holding few alarms, Cook not just failed to take advantage, not just failed to mount the defence his side required, but betrayed the extent to which his own personal game has sunk.
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