Well, my prediction was a bit off for Stokes, but it seems the injury that hampered him for most of the match has ruled him out of the second test. In comes Woakes in what will presumably be a like-for-like replacement.
First day of the second test, a day of missed opportunities for England’s batsmen, although we’re still looking pretty good at 310/6. I expect Moeen will be out in the 40s tomorrow.
Well, I was wrong about Mooen, he got 155*, but Sri Lanka weren’t nearly as tight today, letting England away with dropped catches and poor fielding.
They’ve continued to show an utter inability to deal with these conditions as well, and I suspect England will enforce the follow-on and win tomorrow.
I thought Sri Lanka were genuinely awful today. Was willing to give them a pass for Leeds - the weather was awful and the conditions were helpful for England - and yesterday, they did enough to be just about in touch. But today, they dropped chances they would have taken yesterday, bowled badly, Mathews allowed the game to drift after lunch - far too often letting Mo keep the strike when they could have been strategically working the game towards Finn and Anderson, and finally they batted badly, in the best batting conditions that they have seen thus far on tour, on a deck that yielded 500 runs and was true enough for Mo to go from 50 to 150 in 84 balls.
They did nothing right today and England are a good enough side that you can’t have days like this. This may not get into Day 4.
The odd thing about SL is that the catching on the first day was so good. Someone’s collected some video of the catches on Reddit, and Matthews catching Hales in the slips is as good a 1st slip catch as you’ll see.
Much, much better from Sri Lanka today. Will be interesting to see if they can make England bat again.
Thought SL put it together much better in the second innings - but turning up only half way through the match isn’t going to cut it and consequently, a 9 wicket defeat is about what they deserved.
Was pleased for Mo and Woakes (though on this latter, he looked much more inert and expensive in the second innings - I suspect his role is to be the new Tim Bresnan, i.e. someone not quite good enough to get in the team if everyone is fit but someone you’re happy to turn to when someone gets injured). Also pleased for Chandimal, who worked very hard to get that second innings ton.
There’s a gap until the game at Lord’s - England already saying they’ve picked the same 12 for that game. SL have another problem. Eranga’s action has been reported and he’ll now have to undergo biometric testing.
Well, third test starts today at Lord’s. England have been rather poor in dead rubbers recently, but they’ll probably never have a better opportunity to put that to rest. Winning will help them climb the Test rankings, should they win their next series. Weather over the next few days is a bit uncertain so they may need to take wickets as quickly as they have in the last 2 games. Conditions should help with this, I would think, unless the groundsman has prepared a super-flat track for some reason.
An interesting first day. England still looking wobbly - only two batsmen scoring over 30 so far, and if Eranga had taken that easy chance of Bairstow we’d be deep in the mire. The highlights showed Sri Lanka were bowling well, but it’s Lord’s on a sunny day so there’s really no excuse for so many failures.
We’ll see what today brings - Bairstow, Woakes and Broad have the ability to add another 50-70, or it might end all too fast. How Sri Lanka manage to bat is the big question: if they can hold on to their Durham 2nd innings form, we might have a match on.
(On which note, having the first two Tests of a three Test series be effectively warm-ups for the visiting team is a waste of everyone’s time and money. Why would any venue bid for that? A couple of matches against county sides would a) get the opposition in form and b) generate some interest ahead of the big matches. I don’t know who decided it wasn’t necessary, but what a waste.)
There’s all types of issues that I think need resolving with respect to the incoming tours in England and a structured season. I entirely agree with the thrust of what you’re saying above - but whilst Test Cricket is paying for the remainder of English cricket, they’re going to try and shoehorn 7 Tests in every summer, which results in playing some matches in May (it needn’t but it does), which results in clashes with the IPL, with more and more knock on effects for incoming teams’ access to players, acclimatisation periods and so on. Someone has to host these matches - the bidding process at the minute though is an utter farce and costing counties money. It’s a mess and the growing importance of T20 globally and the need for the ECB to get the T20 Blast working financially to a greater extent, whilst balancing the pressure that the IPL brings to bear.
I thought we weren’t much cop yesterday. Compton is done. Hales played a brainless shot when it wasn’t doing much and Vince and Ali did the usual look good for a bit then get out. Yesterday was a day for patience and accumulation. No surprise then that Cook scored reasonably (but should have gone on more) and Bairstow did well and everyone else struggled. We’ll need to bowl well when we get a chance - SL may well have the best of the pitch conditions, if not the overhead conditions (due to rain a bit over the weekend).
Lunch on Day 3, Sri Lanka had a very good day batting yesterday but it’s fallen apart a bit this morning. Their tail hasn’t shown itself to be particularly resilient, so at 218/6, still trailing by nearly 200, England will be thinking of a lead of around 100. Sri Lanka would have been thinking of maybe getting a lead themselves and putting pressure on, but it seems unlikely now.
Day 4 live report from Lord’s.
Rain. Son reading Horrible Histories quite happily. I’m getting bored, restless and grumpy. Play due to start at 2.40. Beer snake count: 0 because this is Lord’s and we have certain standards.
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With the delay, England probably want a lead of 300 and declare with c. an hour to go?
There may be more rain this evening and a little around lunchtime tomorrow so it might need a more aggressive declaration for a win. Doubt we’ll see it though.
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At Tea, England are 334 ahead. They may well declare an hour or so before tea. Of course, they may not. I don’t know what the weather is supposed to be doing for tomorrow, but I don’t think “Cook” and “aggressive declaration” are really well known together, but we’ll see.
Disappointing for Hales, although he had a number of chances on his way to his highest Test score.
Yesterday, I saw Alistair Cook hit a six. Yesterday, I saw Alistair Cook play the ramp shot.
When I am old and enfeebled, these are the memories that will stay with me.
The six was a pretty good shot. The ramp shot (both of them) was amusingly bad - a reminder why he should not be playing limited overs cricket.
You’d think this is going to be about the weather today. I genuinely thought about pulling a sickie and heading down to Lord’s today. £20 only for what could be a decent day’s worth of cricket - if the rain can manage to hold off. My office is only about 5 miles away and it’s raining here…
Yeah, it’s due to rain most of the day, unfortunately.
In many ways, the fact that there’s no provision for making up time lost to rain on following days is kind of ridiculous. If there’s hardly any play today, why not play tomorrow? Why not have scheduled in a potential extra day ahead of time? I know there’s a tradition of the rain-affected draw, and it can be part of the strategic mix etc. etc. but really: finish your sporting contest, don’t just call it off.
This point is slighly undercut by the fact that it’s due to tip down on Tuesday as well, but still the principle is sound.
No play yet today - the rain has stopped and they are taking an early lunch, which means they might be able to start at 1.10 if the rain holds off and if the ground is dry enough - here’s hoping. Realistically though I think this is over. Still a decent series from England, it was really only the weather that prevented the whitewash.
See, though, isn’t that a bit silly? I know this is fairly heretical, but why not try to find the extra time to finish the match instead of just shrugging shoulders and marking up a draw.
10 wickets to get for a whitewash vs 330 for a face-saving win should be the recipe for a cracking final day. But instead, nothing. It’s much odder than we allow ourselves to realise.
I agree with you. But it won’t happen because of TV scheduling. Shame.