Was Atkinson supposed to have any batting credentials?
Not particularly - it’s his first first class ton, and he averages 20.
In his second Test series, and fourth Test match, Atkinson is on all three honours boards at Lords; 5 in an innings, 10 in a match, century.
Very real danger he decides he has now completed Test cricket, and moves on to other challenges.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s decision to insert England, which was looking pretty shrewd at 212-6, is now at 427 and 142-7, looking considerably less brilliant.
And now Joe Root has his second ton of the test, putting him ahead of Cook into first place of number of hundreds scored for England. He really is the best batsman who’s ever played for England, and I think of current players only Steve Smith could be said to edge ahead of him. Maybe.
I was thinking this morning (afternoon in England) that if he hadn’t been captain who knows what his record would have been.
But when I looked it up, his average as captain was 46 and not captain is 54. So yeah, an all time great for England for sure.
Sri Lanka look like winning this one.
They bowled England out for 156 in the second innings, leaving them about 220 to chase, and they are currently 99/1 with two days left, although they’ve taken a leaf out of the Bazball book and are rolling along at 5.5 an over.
The series has gone, and whilst the England second innings wasn’t great or was a tough time to bat under clouds against a good attack, but we threw far too many first innings wickets away in and apparent quest for quick runs. We’ve been much calmer generally this series, but we’ve thrown this away.
2 down now, but also beyond the psychological milestone of less than a 100 needed.
I’m happy to see SL win - it’ll be a big boost for them, and a deserved return on some excellent bowling yesterday.
More to the point, Test cricket should be hard for both teams, funding and scheduling issues mean that there are a lot of teams not getting the chance to develop themselves and a Test win abroad should be a boost for Sri Lanka.
Run rate has picked up a little bit but SL are being pretty ruthlessly professional here - not trying to win it in 10 overs, just accumulating with minimal risk.
I kept waiting for Sri Lanka to collapse again. They’ve been competitive throughout the series in patches, but couldn’t quite get three good sessions in a row. When they did, they won a test.
Yeah, they definitely deserved it, but England did make it a bit easier for them than they should have - not only throwing many wickets away while batting, but persisting with spin for too long in the SL first innings instead of just coming off for light and trying again the next day.
There was an interesting stat on TMS about how much shorter (in terms of overs bowled) England test matches have steadily become over the last 30 years or so. Even if the ECB guarantees venues’ revenues in some way in the event of an early finish, that money has to come from somewhere. Dunno what you do about it though - nobody wants even slower over rates, or to return to the days of 4 runs an over being an exceptionally fast scoring rate.
Pakistan’s misery continues. Could be on track to lose a second test in a month after posting 500-plus first up.
It’s a grim match all round. Root is visibly shattered, barely able to limp up the steps to teh changing room at stumps, the bowlers are knacked, there’s hardly any jeopardy - I mean, it’s great that various records are being set but it’s a war of attrition really.
As a Pakistan fan, I’m very concerned about how our batters will perform if they are going out after lunch on day 5 with a deficit of 150, flat pitch or not.
393-2 off 81 overs in a day is a very good run rate.
Joe Root has overtaken Cook too become England’s highest ever run scorer, and gets into 5th place in the last. Room to climb a little too, but I actually don’t think he’ll overtake Tendulkar.
He’s only 800 behind second place.
Keep serving up pitches (and pop-gun attacks) like this and he’ll be there in this series!
Well, he draws to a halt at 262, the slacker. Brook meanwhile has surreptitiously got to 314 off 317 which, come on now, is video game scoring.
However, with Woakes in at 7, Pakistan are now bowling at a long tail. Questionable selection strategy from England really.
When will England declare? Lead is 225, obviously they don’t want to bat again but it will take some time to take 10 wickets so you’d have thought fairly soon.
…that said, Brook is now out, there can be no point making the bowlers sweat, surely?
You know, when the grand vizars who run cricket in Pakistan were in their pomp as players/administrators or even just spectators did they think that for a Test that after 300 overs, 1400 runs and 17 wickets about half way through Day4 while being most of 300 behind and the only feasible, honourable result outcome is for PAK to score merely 250 in the last innings and lose by an innings, that this represented what their own coaches and mentors would describe as “good cricket”, something the prodigiously talented PAK youth might consider aspirational?
Regarding your concerns about Pakistan batting after lunch on day 5, I may be able to offer you some good news.
This is unadulterated misery.
And it’s another few thousand after that to overtake Tendulkar.
I expect he’ll overtake Ponting into second place, but he’s not getting younger. He certainly could do it, if he plays another 4 or 5 years and does well for those, he will. I just doubt he will.
Loads of stats and records for England’s 823/7. What surprises me about most of them is that they are all “This is the second time” or “Only 4 people have done this…”. Even the partnership record is England’s biggest, but 4th on the list, and all the ones above are fairly recent (1991 is the oldest, Martin Crowe and Jones for New Zealand getting 467).
Mind you, it does look like Pakistan could become the first team to ever score 500 in first dig and then lose by an innings.