If it was not common knowledge that life inside the bubble placed around the England camp during the Duncan Fletcher era had become much too introspective and suspicious, it has certainly become so since the publication of the former head coach’s book. In many respects, attitudes have been more sensible since and the first few days of this tour have suggested that the players wish to have a proper devotion to their main duty and as natural a life as possible when they are not at work.

How crass it was, therefore, for the team’s permanent travelling security officer, the mustachioed Australian Reg Dickason, genial and popular figure around the team though he may be, to take it on himself to justify his presence by building barriers between the open dressing-room area on the grass in front of the intimate little mahogany panelled pavilion at the Colombo Cricket Club and the tiny smattering of spectators who had come to watch.

A few of them joined CCC members in the shade of the pavilion, underneath the electric fans that do no more than stir the thick and torpid air. About 20 of them braved the heat of the day, sitting quietly on the grassy steps a little to the left and behind the England players. There was not a Barmy Army chant between them, but a few of them, very politely, asked during the first day for an autograph or two and someone came to take a photograph.

At a low-key game such as this one especially, the responsibility of Dickason, a former policeman representing Olive Security, the firm employed by the ECB to cocoon the team to an extent that became ridiculous in the unthreatening environment of Australia last year, should be for the players’ safety and nothing else. But he asked the local staff to erect string round the canvas gazebo where they sat and by the second morning this had been extended to three sides, leaving entrances and exits only on to the field of play.

That was not sufficient for the eagle-eyed protector. A block of wood was added to close a gap between one pillar of the gazebo and the boundary fence; a table was placed to bar entrance to further grassed steps directly behind the players and finally, la pièce de résistance, up went a handwritten notice in green ink: “STRICTLY NO AUTOGRAPH PLEASE: It is a disturbance to the players. Please understand.”

This may seem a small matter, but it is an important one. It might conceivably have been excusable had the players shown any sign of being disturbed. In fact, like most professional cricketers, they seemed happy to sign the occasional autograph and they are perfectly capable of courteously refusing one when needing to concentrate on the match.

The more philosophical of them might well have reasoned that the time that they should become concerned is when no one asks for their signatures any more. Especially at a game such as this, it is essential that they keep friendly relations with all around them and a proper sense of their own importance, one that is neither inflated nor underestimated.

Under Peter Moores and Michael Vaughan, England show every sign of holding that balance between private concentration on their job and a proper awareness of their responsibilities as public figures. They really can do without a heavy-handed minder to lean upon. When the laughable officiousness of the notice, no matter how tactfully phrased, was pointed out to Andrew Walpole, the England team’s press officer, he creditably had it taken down before distributing some team photographs among the faithful few.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan gazebo on the other side of the pavilion remained unmolested and unprotected as the total being mounted by their colleagues grew larger by the over.