Everyone loves a good, old comeback story in sport. For ageing forces past their prime, you can’t help but harbour a soft spot. Skill and ability might have reduced, but the eyes still carry a glint, the force of will making creaky limbs run. Cricket’s Expendables are no different.

28 overs into England’s innings, Angelo Mathews, shades on and ambling like a boss, walked off midway through a drinks interval, having just starred front and centre in a comeback no one expected. Until a week ago, his one-day career had been in apparent hibernation.

In his fourth ODI World Cup, this time as a replacement player, the grand old man of Sri Lankan cricket produced inexplicable nonsense with his ultra-military medium in Bengaluru.

It was baffling on multiple fronts. To start with, Mathews had no plans of being in India until Matheesha Pathirana’s injury. His last ODI had come in June, one of three he had played in the last two years. In fact, since the start of 2020, he had clocked just seven appearances.

Now Mathews is great enough to land into any Sri Lanka XI on paper, but is he as good anymore?

Sacked from captaincy a few years ago, dropped from the 2023 World Cup Qualifiers, minimal recent one-day experience, seemingly out of form with overworked and oft-injured knees and hamstrings: you could have assumed his appearances wouldn’t budge past 221.

Yet, here he was, at the Chinnaswamy – on a supposed batting paradise – churning out deliveries that England couldn’t make any sense out of.

And that’s the second bit about the inexplicable nonsense: Mathews kept England on a string by barely touching 120kph. At the same track less than a week ago, Australia had blitzed to an opening stand of 259 here in a match aggregate of 672. England were getting beaten, nicking off, getting thumped on the back pad, by gentle dibbly-dobblies.

There was little lateral movement to compensate for the pace either: it was all naggingly subtle. Cross-seams and off-cutters, on good length and thereabouts, made the batters play at it and making sure they missed it or edged it. Last evening, Mathews wasn’t even sure he’d bowl.

“If the captain gives me the ball, obviously I’ll bowl,” Mathews said the evening before. “But yes, I prepared myself to bowl some overs as well”, mentioning how his inclusion adds balance to the side.

Mathews has added several years to the sprightly, athletic frame that grabbed eyeballs as the 2009 T20 World Cup, for a marvellous – and then controversial – diving boundary double save. Bulkier with worn-off joints, his pace has tailed off, restricting his bowling to cameos. Only twice since the 2015 World Cup has he bowled his full ten overs. One of them was the last time he bowled in ODIs – during his four-for against the West Indies in March 2020.

What he does have, though, is a knack that’s difficult to quantify. Four years ago, against the West Indies, Mathews produced a pearl that compelled Nicholas Pooran to edge behind. It was clocked at 115kph – with Mathews, that number never defines what the delivery does. It was his first ball of the 2019 World Cup.

In 2023, he needed two more deliveries to deliver a comeback sucker punch.

Another disastrous outing for England, who have now lost four of their five games at the 2023 World Cup.#ENGvSL #CWC23 pic.twitter.com/qAndlvMexW

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) October 26, 2023

It came the same way: an unassuming delivery carried enough to entice David Malan into a feather nick. You don’t know why you are doing it, but you are lulled by the pace: by the time you realise, the extra bounce, the cross-seam and the subtle pace change has had you.

Before his next victim, Mathews already had a failed review (a good ball but a bad referral), a run out effected by his accurate throw, and some sliding by the fence to prove he belonged. England were yet to be drawn into a collapse, but the general uneventfulness of Mathews’ second spell suggested something might just give soon.

Moeen Ali was offered a simple ball: back of length with width, and ended up smashing it straight to Perera at backward point. There’s no reasoning to explain why it happened, but it happened.

His next over was a maiden, a rarity in this day and age, tying up David Willey with a mix of lengths. This century, only four Sri Lankan bowlers (Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan, Nuwan Kulasekara and Lasith Malinga) have sent down more ODI maidens than Mathews, all having bowled considerably more than him.

“I challenged myself over the past few months and started bowling as well, to try and contribute in whatever way possible,” said Mathews between innings. The results were paying off.

Between spells, he was the wise consultant at mid-off or mid-on, helping out Dilshan Madushanka, Lahiru Kumara and Kasun Rajitha, all several years his cricketing junior. It just made the picture complete for Sri Lanka. Incredibly, his batting, clearly his stronger suit, wasn’t even needed today.

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Mathews is an all-round superstar, an indefatigable powerhouse for his country, a statistical anomaly and now an age-less wonder. As he first walked a few paces before entering the sprint of his run-up (a’la Jasprit Bumrah) – the receding hairline glistening in the angled sunshine – once couldn’t help me remarked by the timelessness of it all. At sub-120kph, he was beating the bat and hitting batters on the thigh. Cricket can be both funny and wholesome at the same time.

“I didn’t expect [to come back] after the fifteen was selected” Mathews had said last night. “But it is what it is, the opportunity came.”

In strange circumstances, and with stranger methods, one of cricket’s finer comebacks caught the defending champions by surprise.