Hussain dedicates crucial century to his teammates

Throughout the lean period, his team were behind him to a man, and it showed when the pay-off finally arrived. "There you are, boys," said Nasser Hussain in the dressing room after reaching his ninth Test hundred. And afterwards: "They have stuck by me during a difficult year and I felt that I owed them that innings."

Number 3 is a pivotal position in any Test side, never more so than after an early setback. In Galle England's openers - especially Marcus Trescothick - had carried the bulk of England's batting effort. Here at Kandy both went comparatively cheaply, leaving the tourists wobbling precariously. Already 1-0 down in the series, they were 37 for 2. If Hussain has suffered mental anguish during the past year's run famine, his approach didn't show it. Of his first 50 runs, 32 came in boundaries, including the six off Muralitharan which completed the half century. In all he struck 12 fours and three sixes in an innings of 109 which has re-affirmed his credentials as a top-flight international batsman.

Shortly before this Test Match started, the former England captain Michael Atherton wrote how 15 years ago on the Young England tour of Sri Lanka, Hussain scored a brilliant 170 at the same Asgiriya stadium. "How his team would love to see the magic of Kandy rub off on him again," wrote Atherton. Truly a prophet! Be in no doubt there are past England captains in the current side, who know a thing or two about the stresses and strains of the job, who will share a measure of Hussain's delight and relief. They will be hoping, along with England supporters home and away, that the floodgates will now open and that for bowlers, the retribution will be terrible.

David Gower was not the only England captain to remark upon how much easier the job becomes when you're scoring runs. So sure-footed has Hussain's captaincy been that his poor form has never put his place in serious jeopardy; but as Mike Brearley knows, it's much easier to survive a lean run if you're skippering a successful side. The nightmare scenario - of coinciding team and personal failure - has mercifully been banished a distance beyond the biggest of those sixes. For Nasser Hussain, glad confident morning has finally dawned again.