The super-sub

England's team selection for the second Test at Kandy had everyone fooled. Before the match, various permutations had been aired - from the retention of Paul Collingwood as an extra batsman, to the inclusion of a third spinner, to the return of James Anderson in place of Richard Johnson or Matthew Hoggard. But nobody quite envisaged the combination the selectors finally settled for.

With Anderson impressing in the nets and charging in off his full run, James Kirtley had been half-expecting to pack his bags and head home for an early Christmas. Instead, he was thrust into the front line as England's solitary specialist seamer. It was, almost inevitably, a line-up that had Ian Botham in fits of apoplexy - a shockingly defensive approach, he ranted, that handed every ounce of the Galle initiative straight back to the Sri Lankans.

And yet, at 277 for 7, the day's honours were just about even. And what is more, the man who made much of it possible was Kirtley himself. He made the early and late breakthroughs, with the wickets of Marvan Atapattu and Chaminda Vaas; he pinged in an inch-perfect return to run out Kumar Sangakkara; and he pulled off another of his trademark diving catches at backward square leg to remove Mahela Jayawardene. Not bad for a man who thought he was a spare part up until the eve of the Test.

It may not do much for his sense of belonging, but there can be no doubt that Kirtley thrives in the last-chance saloon. Three times in his England career, he has been given an unexpected opportunity, and on each occasion he has given the selectors the "headache" beloved of headline-writers.

At Trent Bridge last August, Kirtley finally made it onto the field for England after being left out on the first morning of the first four Tests of the summer, and responded with a matchwinning six-wicket haul in the second innings. But it wasn't enough to secure him a Test berth for the winter, and he had been packed and ready to fly home after the one-dayers, when Anderson twisted his ankle in that now-legendary squash fixture. Given a solitary warm-up match in which to prove his worth, Kirtley grabbed four top-order wickets in six overs.

And now this. Speaking after that tour match in Colombo last month, Kirtley told the press how relaxed he had felt, knowing that the pressure was off and all he had to do was go out and bowl. "It was an easy day for me," he admitted at the time. He made today's Test cricket look pretty easy as well, and that is quite a feat.

With many of the morning papers concentrating on Steve Harmison's diffident approach to international cricket, Kirtley's attitude is refreshing. Much of it, of course, might stem from those never-quite-buried murmurs about his bowling action - when your entire career can flash before the eyes of a match referee, as Kirtley's did in Zimbabwe in October 2001, it pays to cash in while you can. For England however, the end result is a super-sub: a man who can be turned to any situation and relied on to perform a role. A situation such as the midpoint of a back-to-back three-Test series, for example.