We wait to see if there are any long-lasting scars. There could be after that drubbing for England by South Africa at Centurion. It was only 20 overs but the mayhem in the field was such that several players could take a while to recover.
I'm thinking particularly of Adil Rashid and Sajid Mahmood. Rashid yielded 25 runs from his only over, whereupon the captain, Alastair Cook, decided to protect him – as well as the spectators beyond the leg-side boundary. Mahmood went for 61 in four overs – only Sanath Jayasuriya has gone for more in international Twenty20 cricket. By the end Mahmood did not appear to be relishing the challenge.
Broadly speaking there are two types of bowlers: those who engage in a fierce personal duel with the batsman at the other end and those who operate in a vacuum, almost oblivious to their opponent. They prefer to concentrate on ensuring that everything is right when the ball is released rather than on the batsman.
In the first category we might find, snarling away at every adversary up the other end, Dennis Lillee, Fred Trueman, Ian Botham, Darren Gough, Shane Warne and Dale Steyn. They all revelled in the duel. They liked to have a word. For them bowling was/is a personal battle – of wills as well as skills.
By contrast the likes of Bob Willis, Andy Caddick, Steve Harmison and, I suspect, Mahmood, were/are not so interested in the duel. They operated best when they were inside their own bubble, pursuing that elusive combination of technical and rhythmical perfection.
In the harsh, exposed environment of Twenty20 it may be better to have bowlers who are eager to duel. The game becomes a fight for survival. At Centurion Graeme Smith, South Africa's captain, decided to target Mahmood and he won the battle all too easily. Mahmood – and he was not alone in this – was utterly flustered. He could not summon up the requisite yorkers to order. He was unable to react to the onslaught.
It was a nightmare scenario for Mahmood – and Rashid: short boundaries, a true pitch and two gifted strikers of a cricket ball, who had shed every inhibition. Modern bowlers have had to endure more than their predecessors. No generation of batsmen has explored all the ways to smash a cricket ball out of the ground as assiduously as this one.
Now some theory – safe from the armchair – of what to do when an onslaught is imminent: obviously the best bet for the bowler is to make the batsman miss the ball, but this was impossible at Centurion because of the quality of the pitch and players. So the next option is to try to ensure that the ball hits either the top or the bottom of the opponent's bat, either the splice or the toe. Even modern bat-makers cannot put a sweet spot there.
In other words the yorker or the rising delivery, straight at the body, are the best options. But there is no guarantee of where that body is going to be any more. So it becomes imperative that the bowler focuses upon his opponent, rather than the spot he is aiming for, as he runs up to bowl. Nowadays the batsman is often a moving target so this makes it ever more difficult for the bowler. Flexibility of body and mind is required.
It was hard not to feel sorry for Cook on his first outing as England captain after which he lost 20% of his match fee for the slow over rate. It was chaotic out there and he may chuckle about it one day when he is established as England's captain.
He should not worry too much about criticisms of his failure to change the batting order when in pursuit of 242. My guess is that the England management decided privately that victory was out of the question so they kept the same order and settled for some practice.
But when he captains again Cook might be better off telling all those well-meaning advisers on the field, who kept rushing towards him amid the mayhem on Sunday, to bugger off and let him make his own mistakes.
