Something doesn't feel right. The ball thumps into Roshen Silva's pads and England go up, but it feels like a theatre appeal. No one truly believes it. Sri Lanka started their chase needing over 300 runs and they still need over 150. Their top four are gone, but luck, fate, momentum, or whatever made-up thing you hold dear, is on their side.

The partnership has gone past 50, which is over 16% of the chase, and these two now appear permanent at the crease. Despite the early wickets, the tough pitch and England having a plethora of bowlers, you can see how Sri Lanka will win the second Test.

There's a noise that cricket fans make in chases like this, as if cricket's global consciousness tightens at once, and it squeaks. In a Test chase, partnerships bring this extra sense of assurance. Fans of the chasing side dare to dream, bowling fans panic, and cricket seems to be on the verge of making something magical happen. A lucky swipe that lands in a gap is no longer seen as a sign a wicket is coming; it's proof the game has changed. Oh, look, now crows are on the outfield; clearly they signify the death of this bowling attack.

All rational thinking suggests that the chasing side almost never wins when they chase big totals. We've seen them fail to do so our entire cricketing lives. Depending on your age, you've seen this in our incredible current batting era, the great Test years from the '70s to the '90s, or before that, in the days of uncovered pitches. And yet here you are, with all that cricket-watching knowledge and plenty of stories from your grandparents. You've read the books, swiped the notifications, listened to the wireless and sat in front of countless illegal streams, and yet you still believe.

We don't behave rationally in chases. In the history of Tests, a target of 300-plus has been set 666 times; only 30 times has the chase been successful. No matter how much this partnership feels like an indestructible force because of whatever cricket god you pray to, or what your cricket senses are telling you, the bowling team almost always wins with runs on the board. Despite your raised heart rate, in 300-plus chases, only 4.5% of the times do the batsmen win. It's less than a one-in-20 shot.

England win by 57 runs.

***

This decade, teams have won 3.2% of chases over 300. It's the lowest - by a distance - since the 1960s, when pitches were still uncovered. This decade also has the highest percentage of 300-plus chases set - 53% of all chases. So batsmen have never had to chase this many big totals before, and they've rarely been worse at it.

Fourth-innings batting has been a struggle this decade, as you can see from the runs-per-wicket average, which has dropped 15.4% from the last decade. It's the lowest average decades-wise since the 1910s. It's a batsman's game for three innings, then the bowlers take charge. (The 1940s looks like nothing else in fourth-innings history because it only had 27 fourth innings, which included a couple of big drawn scores, and a world-record chase.)

It's only a decade ago that fourth-innings batting was solid. Techniques have changed a lot in that time, but maybe pitches are also being allowed to slightly decay more, after the CEO pitches of the 2000s that were built to last five days. You could argue that there have been more fourth innings in Asia than ever before this decade, and Asia is a tough place to bat in the fourth innings. (In the '90s it was the second worst place to bat in the fourth innings, but in the '70s, '80s and 2000s it was the worst.)

So more Tests there would explain this dip, except, the fourth-innings average in Asia hasn't dipped like in other places. Despite the fact that limited-overs cricket has probably had more effect in Asia than anywhere else - perhaps bar the West Indies - the fall in Asia is only 3.5 runs per innings from the 2000s. And I say that only as a comparison to the drop elsewhere. In the West Indies it has dropped over six runs, in Zimbabwe and South Africa it has dropped over eight runs, and in England, the drop has been nine runs. This means for this decade Asia has been among the better places to bat last.

It is clear that batsmen haven't scored so few runs in the fourth innings in the last 100 years. All this while batsmen have dominated Tests. Batting in the fourth innings is tough, but it varies depending on what you chase.

Even through their period of supremacy Australia still carried the stigma of struggling in smaller chases. Pakistan have carried it seemingly forever. Australia have succeeded in 73% of fourth-innings chases of between 100 and 200 runs, whereas the overall success rate for that kind of chase is 69%. West Indies have the best record here, with 75% success.

Pakistan's reputation is not misplaced: their record in those chases is 63%, which even for Asia (68% of all such chases in Asia end in defeat for the chasing team) is really low. South Africa, for all their reputation as chokers in ODI cricket, are successful in 74% of these chases. It does mean, however, that even the best teams only win three out of four in what is thought of as a relatively simple chase. Bowling teams who set targets between 100 and 200 have won 46 of 297 matches, making it about a one in six chance.