Author: Sir Ronald

England vs. Sri Lanka – 3rd Test, Day 1

Sir Ronald46 Comments

One of the slightly annoying vagaries of the Test Match season is that work rather gets in the way of my ability to watch any of the game and I’m afraid that is the case today and will also be the case tomorrow too, with my only chance to catch up on proceedings being through the Channel 5 highlights.

From first glance, England very much have Jonny Bairstow to thank for digging them out of a very large hole of their own making on a flat and benign pitch at Lords. Fair play to Sri Lanka who bowled well and tightly on this pitch, but it was an often repeated story as England constantly threw away their wickets at regular intervals, with only James Vince being able to convincing argue that he got a good’un. Hales’ mow at Herath showed that he is not an international class batsman as of yet and Compton’s fidgety, sometimes painful innings was bought to an end when he nicked off chasing a wide one. It is hard not to sympathise with Compton as a fan of the game, he has worked hard to get his chance but it just hasn’t happened for him at Test level. This will now have been his 16th Test in an England shirt (and fair play to Bayliss who has resisted the MSM pressure to give him a decent run in the side) but he just hasn’t scored the necessary runs, nor convinced that he can operate at this level and so the search for a new number 3 will now start in earnest. The vultures over at the MSM of course didn’t have any sympathy mind declaring that it had been a waste of everyone’s time to pick Compton in the first pace:

https://twitter.com/Paul_NewmanDM/status/740875179455303680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A note to the likes of Newman and Berry, no it wasn’t a waste of time in picking Compton, he was picked because England felt that he was the best number 3 that we had. It hasn’t unfortunately worked out for Compton or England, but the real waste of a summer would be read the nefarious drivel that you consistently insult your readers with. Rant over.

As for captain courageous, he got a start, looked good and then got out in the 80’s. I’ve kept my powder fairly dry in the ‘is Alastair Cook a great of the modern game?’ This clearly gave us our answer for all to see, a great player would have gone on and made a big hundred against a weakish attack on a placid pitch, Alastair Cook did not, again. Cook’s average may look pretty healthy over the last 12 months but that is mainly down to a monumental score on a featherbed in Abu Dhabi and a couple of not outs and when you dig a little further, it’s not quite as healthy as his followers would tell you. Put it this way, when was the last time Cook scored a match winning hundred to ultimately turn a game in England’s favour? Answers on a postcard? The ability to do that on a consistent basis in my opinion, should be the mark of a great batsman, sure Alastair Cook is a very good international batsmen, but a great? I can give you 10,000 reasons why he falls short.

The Decision Review System came under scrutiny again today, when umpire Ravi, England’s favourite umpire gave a decision not out, when it looked for all the world to see that the ball was cannoning into leg stump. Now I’m not blaming S Ravi for the system not being up to scratch (though he is an extremely poor umpire in my eyes), it is more the fact that we don’t seem to be getting the right result from the technology. My own view is that either you trust the system implicitly and a batsman is given out if any of the ball is forecast to hit the stump or you ditch DRS completely, not stick with this halfway house which is making us all look a little bit stupid. The fact that the bowling (or batting team) loses a review for an umpires call is even more galling and something really does need to be done to address this issue ASAP.

Apologies for the slightly sparse report tonight, watching the highlights doesn’t exactly give me too much to go off.

Day 2 thoughts and comments below:

England vs. Sri-Lanka, 3rd Test – Preview

Sir Ronald39 Comments

So we’re off to Lords tomorrow with England taking an 8-0 advantage in the Super Series there, so still absolutely everything to play for…said no cricket fan ever! In a grudging kind of way, you have to admire Strauss for managing to keep a completely straight face when he commented:

“We believe this will enhance the international game over all formats, at a time when we all recognise the need to keep all forms of international cricket exciting, relevant and engaging for the public.”

“We have to recognise that the world of cricket is changing very quickly. We’ve seen some fantastic innovations recently such as the first ever day-night Test Match in Australia last year, and I see this as something similar for all formats – a way of keeping them all relevant. It’s part of our ongoing efforts to modernise the game of cricket.”

Unfortunately for the Director, English Cricket, most cricket fans or those with even half a brain know a turd when they see one and despite the ECB desperately trying to add a hefty whack of polish to it, I’m afraid that no-one has been taken in by this colossal heap of bullcrap. Perhaps it’s best for the Director, England Cricket to go back to what he knows best i.e. instructing your friends in the mainstream media to continue to write souped up hagiographies

Anyway onto the cricket itself and I’m not sure the majority of the country is amazingly enthused about the prospect of watching this final Test Match in what has been a low quality and underwhelming series. As I suspected, England have gone in again with the same eleven, which hopefully provides Steven Finn with a chance to find some form and rhythm in time for the rest of the summer’s cricket. It also nicely provides the MSM the chance to have one more potshot at Nick Compton before he is cast adrift from the National team and I’m sure the likes of Pringle, Selvey, Newman and Stocks have their pencils sharpened in the hope of writing his international obituary with the same glee that they have writing about what an inspirational leader Alastair Cook is! I’m still not quite sure what Compton has done to upset the MSM apart from not scoring that many runs and not being Joe Root, but it seems he has rubbed up the wrong people and that is basically that for him. I will eat my proverbial hat if he is picked for the first Test of the Pakistan series.

With Compton seemingly on the way out, social media and Sky has been awash with views around who is going to replace him at number 3. It has been mentioned that there is the possibility of Vince moving up to 3, Bairstow to 5 and Buttler to come in at 7, though I think that is highly unlikely considering that Vince hasn’t exactly been prolific in his first couple of Tests (despite Andy Flower’s assertions that he is the new Don Bradman) coupled with the fact Buttler hasn’t played any type of red ball cricket this summer and is unlikely to get much practice before Pakistan start their tour. As a result, many are casting around County Cricket for a potential replacement with Robson, Westley and Borthwick being the names that keep cropping up. Scott Borthwick for me is the most interesting name on the list and one cannot praise him highly enough for having the aptitude, work ethic and skill-set to turn himself from a bowling all rounder to a fixture at number 3 for Durham. Indeed he has had a fantastic season so far scoring three hundreds for Durham, including two in one match, in what is one of the hardest grounds to consistently score on in the County Championship. The fact that Borthwick had been so consistent in recent times, got me thinking why he hadn’t been mentioned before now and why the sudden clamour for his inclusion? One could rightly point out that it’s the number of runs he has churned out for his county this year or it could also be pointed out, if one was a little more cynical, that he has fairly recently been signed up by those lovable rogues, ISM! Perhaps I am being a little churlish and I actually do think Borthwick deserves a chance to showcase his skills on the international stage, especially with the bonus of his leg spin bowling and upcoming trips to Bangladesh and India, but it also does worry me the about seemingly large amount of power that this agency holds over our selectors. Perhaps I’m being paranoid about this, but then again perhaps I’m not (and Katy Scott’s – @ithilienorthend – excellent piece on the growth of ISM is worth a read – https://ashestourist.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/the-impact-of-ism/). Whatever the exact truth is, it seems clear that they have the ears of those in power and if I was an aspiring England cricketer, then being represented by Vaughan and the like would certainly be an interesting prospect. I’m awaiting the Ajmal Shahzad for England bandwagon to pick up over the summer with baited breath.

As for Sri Lanka and their chances of performing at Lords, I would suggest that their batting has a better chance of clicking as it did in the second innings at Durham, than their bowling does to cause England too many worries (especially as all of their first choice bowling attack are either injured or have been reported for dodgy actions). The main reason why I think the Sri Lankan batting attack is likely to fare better is that the Lords pitch is likely to be flatter than an England performance having won a series and judging by the state of the Lord’s pitch this year in county games, a high scoring draw is far more likely than any other result, a 3 day Test Match this won’t be. As I mentioned in my customer experience piece, Lords is the ECB’s cash cow, this is where they make their money, so why take the chance of a Sri Lankan collapse to put at risk guaranteed income from the ECB’s preferred type of fan? This isn’t those ghastly Tests up North (in the ECB’s eyes not mine) where fans refuse to spend £75 a ticket and to nicely line the ECB’s coffers by purchasing £85 lunch hampers, this is the real deal now and something that needs to be protected….

On a final note, I wonder if anyone else has tried to put themselves through the abject pain of watching the WI, Aus & SA tri-series in the West Indies? This surely has to be a lesson to all cricket administrators worldwide that playing meaningless series on substandard pitches and then trying to sell this to the paying public is an act of extreme folly. In fact, I would suggest that this has done more harm than good, with the pitches displaying variable bounce and extreme spin from the first over, this was not a spectacle that will live long in the memory. Sure, no-one wants to see 400 plays 400 in every game, but paying fans do want to see batsmen being able to get the ball off the square and a pitch that doesn’t resemble a Day 5 pitch in Chittagong – no wonder cricket uptake in the West Indies is massively on the wane…

Day 1 thoughts and comments below…

Customer Experience – try telling that to the ECB

Sir Ronald57 Comments

So, the recent travails of trying to sell out the early Tests in the North of the country have been there for all to see. Yorkshire did a fairly decent job of getting punters through the gate, but the struggles that Durham had in attracting fans to the Test have been well documented. In my mind, it was either simply staggering arrogance from the ECB that they believed that they could sell out 2 Test matches in such a close proximity so close together or more likely, it was because they didn’t really give a monkeys, after all they had banked their £950k from each venue, so let the counties take the hit. If this was to be Durham’s last Test match, which I sincerely hope it isn’t, then I suppose they can console themselves that they were there when the ‘chosen one’ got to his 10,000 run mark.

As I mentioned in the preview of the 2nd Test, I simply find it incredible that the ECB are able to still persevere with the ballot systems, which not only hoses the counties (unless you can get an Australia or India to sell) and that in turn ensures us fans get hosed too – a double bubble for the ECB (actually come to think about it the fans tend to get hosed whatever the situation). Why not do as they do in Australia and agree a profit (or loss) sharing scheme and then allocate Tests fairly on a four-year basis? Oh yes, we come to the money question again and as we know the ECB doesn’t like to get involved with anything that might dent the rather tasty nest egg that they’ve managed to accumulate over the past few years, after all Giles Clarke’s lunches don’t come cheap.

This all got me thinking about how other industries and businesses would deal with a customer base that had been going south for quite a while. The term that is now fashionable in the business world is ‘customer experience’, what can we as a business do to convert interested individuals into buying customers and how can we ensure that we get them to keep coming back to us in the future? Now I generally think most business talk/marketing is a mixture of bullshit combined with some of the dark arts, but in this case, I think there is a strong lesson to England’s cricket administrators. After all, if we take the emotional tie of being an England cricket fan away from the mix, then what is there to attract people? I’m pretty sure it’s not the £75 tickets or the ruinously expensive crap they class as a food and drink, nor is it the genuine mismatches that many of the Test Series have thrown up over the past years. I think you get my point as to where I’m going with this! Why would the inhabitants of Durham, Yorkshire, Hampshire or Glamorgan part with their hard earned cash to watch a sport that they know little about? After all it’s not as if you can easily switch on the TV as a casual onlooker to see if cricket is something that floats your boat, you need to pay Sky at least £70 a month for the privilege of doing that.

So what about those fans who do actually go and spend their hard earned cash watching the game, what is their experience of the whole day? Is it something that gets them yearning for more? Well not really in my book and I quantify this by stating that I went to 5 Tests last year (3 against the Australians, 1 against New Zealand and I also flew out to Dubai to watch the 2nd Pakistan test), this year I plan on heading to a maximum of 2. If we look at the fan or customer experience, as this is basically what we’re classed as by the ECB, someone to fill their pockets and keep noise to a minimum unless we’re wholesome in our praise for Alastair Cook, is this really acceptable? Firstly there is the ticket prices, I’m based in London so generally I can’t go and watch a game in London for less than £65 a day, which is a whole lot of money to spend watching part of a game in a 5 day format. Then add in the cost of drinking their god-awful piss beer for £6 a pint and then eating something that might or might not be classed as fit for human consumption at the bargain cost of around £10 (the burger I had at the Oval last year was still wriggling as a vivid example of the dreadful food). So in essence my day out at the cricket with crap beer and something inedible to eat is well over £100 for the day, fancy coming back again? Nah I might give that one a miss! This is the easiest thing in the world to sort out from a customer experience point of view, firstly make sure the tickets are no more than £40 per ticket and if you want to charge top dollar for the food and drink, then please come up with something that isn’t undercooked burgers or Fosters lager! Not exactly rocket science, but as we well know fan enjoyment of our sport is at the very bottom of the ECB’s wish list, it’s all about profit for them.

Ah, they may say, but we have the Lords Test match coming up and that always sells out, so we must be doing something right. Well, Lords is a law onto itself, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I went to the Saturday of the Ashes Test last year and as a Middlesex fan, this really pains me, but I had a really crap time (and not just because Australia were hoofing us round the park). You see my name isn’t Tarquin or Barnaby, I didn’t go to private school, I didn’t go to ‘be seen’ and no I can’t afford the £86 lunchtime hamper and therefore I am not the type of fan that the ECB wants to see in the crowd. Lords has always been about the pomp and circumstance and the thing is that the could put the Sri Lankan under 13’s girls team out against England and Lords would still sell out. It’s never been about the cricket for the average Lord’s punter, it’s about showing the world that you have the connections to be an MCC member or can afford to drinks at the Veuve Clicquot champagne tent or have the money to host a corporate box, these are the real fans that the ECB wants, not you or I, who are passionate about the game. We’re all from the wrong sort of family after all! Needless to say I won’t be watching any Test Matches there again in the foreseeable future…

On a slightly different note, I see Dave Richardson’s been tweaking his rule book again and coming up with some encouraging sound bites about the future of Test cricket – http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/story/1022445.html. Now don’t get me wrong, I think we should be doing all we can to preserve the status of Test cricket and the division idea is a positive one, it’s just that we seem to have the same rhetoric around change every year, but nothing ever seems to happen. I think the first time 2 Test divisions were mentioned was back in the day when the Beatles were still together and precisely what’s changed since then? Well bugger all seems to be the closest guess anyone can fathom. Personally, I’d be surprised if anything does change in the short term, despite the fact that Shashank Manohar seems genuinely committed to growing cricket as a global game, rather than pandering to the favoured few. However, what happens when one of the big three is threatened by relegation? I’m not sure that they are going to shrug their shoulders and declared that we should have played a bit better then (despite Colin Graves’ assertions). It would not surprise me one bit if we ended up with the farcical situation where we have 2 divisions but one in which neither India, Australia or England could get relegated. I’m sure that would be an extremely positive signal about growing the game to the masses. As for the other things being proposed by Manohar, such as the reduction in revenue going to the big 3 and a more even spread of cash amongst the full members and the associates, I am awaiting the news on this with bated breath. Manohar no doubt has the best interests of the sport at heart, but the BCCI looks like it’s circling for a fight with Anurag Thakur, the newly elected president, no doubt bought into power with a mandate of safeguarding their cash and the ever so lovely Giles Clarke still wandering around the halls of power. It could be a very interesting few months for the future of our game. I would suggest to watch this space.

Have a good evening and rest of the week…..

England vs. Sri Lanka – 2nd Test, The Wrap

Sir Ronald43 Comments

Well England did what they needed to do in the end, however they didn’t make things easy for themselves with the way they performed in the field today. Indeed despite Cook and Anderson hitting the headlines for achieving respective landmarks both with the bat and with the ball, the last two days seems to have dredged up more questions than delivered answers around the team make up.

Let’s make no bones about it, they bowled pretty horribly this morning albeit on a pitch that was not conducive to fast bowling. Anderson aside, England looked pretty toothless against stubborn resistance from Chandimal and Herath with Finn and in particular Moeen looking pretty anonymous with the ball. Much as been written about Steven Finn in the press over the last couple of days and it is clear that he is struggling with his action as he has been all season (though I’m not sure I can agree with Mike Selvey’s tweets trying to clear any arguments that David Saker might have been responsible for this.) As I mentioned a few days ago, Finn is the ultimate confidence player and be it through injury or through poor form, his confidence looks pretty shot at the moment. I think he desperately needs some overs with the ball in the county championship when the white ball season kicks off and for that reason, I would leave him out of the one dayers. George Dobell’s piece on Finn is definitely worth a read and a far more eloquent appraisal of the situation that I can muster – http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-sri-lanka-2016/content/story/1021609.html

The same thing can be applied to Moeen, who today was going for 5 an over on a pitch that was starting to take some proper spin. We all knew that Moeen was originally a batsman who also offered us a part time spin option; however there had been performances that also gave us hope that he could perform the task of being England’s main spinner one day. Whether it’s a confidence thing or an ability thing, Moeen’s limitations were shown for all to see in the Pakistan Test series in the UAE and I’m not sure he has recovered any semblance of confidence since that series. I think today clearly shows that England can’t rely on Moeen bowling teams out in the fourth innings of Test Matches at the moment. A true international class spin bowler is still very much on England’s wish list, unfortunately there still aren’t many queuing up on the horizon.

As much as England’s bowlers bowled poorly this morning and they definitely did, our predicament was not helped by Cook the captain, who was happy to let proceedings drift until we finally managed to dig the opposition out. This has been on my bugbears with Cook’s captaincy since he took on the role, that when Plan A and sometimes Plan B don’t work, then there is nothing left in the captaincy tank (MS Dhoni was another captain who seemed to freeze when the going got tough). Why not change the field around, bring on a part-time bowler or ask the bowlers to change the angle of the attack? Something, anything to try and prise a wicket out, but no we just seemed to plod on doing the same thing in the hope that Jimmy Anderson could find a bit of magic to eventually pick up a wicket. It is also right to highlight that Bairstow dropped a fairly regulation chance to get rid of Chandimal during the morning. This is always going to be the problem when you want a batsman who keeps wicket, rather than a wicketkeeper who can bat in your team. Bairstow did not have a good day with the gloves routinely spilling deliveries or struggling to take them cleanly. I do think his keeping on the whole has improved since the winter, but it is clear that he is very much a work in progress still and the wicketkeeper debate looks set to rumble on over the summer. Let’s just hope he has got his poor day out of his system for the rest of the summer.

Though, I have been critical of England’s bowling and captaincy today, this should not take away anything from the application of the Sri Lankan batsmen. Herath played a fighting, nuggetty innings for his team (though quite what Chandimal must have thought when he started to trying to reverse sweep when he was stuck on 98 not out, must be something else) and of course it was a classy hundred from Chandimal who looked an assured and classy batsman. Sri Lanka desperately need Matthews and Chandimal to lead from the front in what is a very inexperienced top order, but the signs today were good that Chandimal has the ability and temperament to score runs regularly at this level.

A final note has to go to Cook the batsman. It would be totally churlish of me not to congratulate him on reaching a memorable landmark. Cook without doubt is a fine international player and deserves praise for his longevity and ability to squeeze out the volume of runs that he has. Is he a world-class player? I would suggest his stats show that he isn’t quite in the same league as the Sangakkara’s, Tendulkar’s, Waugh’s and Dravid’s of this world, who were all world class, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the fact that he has been a fine opener for England in years gone past. Let’s now hope that with this landmark burden removed from his shoulders, that he can find some form again and score the runs that this England team needs him to do.

England vs. Sri Lanka – 2nd Test, Day 3

Sir Ronald25 Comments

Day 3 finally saw something that has been missing from this entire series, a bit of fight from the Sri Lankan tourists. After we took the last two Sri Lankan first innings wickets in the morning, it could be genuinely feared that this contest wouldn’t last until Tea, such has been the fragility of the tourists batting line up, however thankfully there was no such repeat of the first innings.

The Sri Lankan batsmen did the basics well, left the ball outside off stump, moved their feet better, didn’t go lunging after the ball on a fifth stump line and scored runs when the loose deliveries came. As I said yesterday, there are absolutely no demons in this pitch, nor has there been any swing throughout the whole 3 days, which just shows how meek their first innings performance actually was. All of the Batsmen pretty much got a start except Karunaratne, who doesn’t seem to know where his stumps are, and Silva, Chandimal and particularly Matthews all looked good on a docile batting surface. There will be hopes in the Sri Lankan dressing room that Chandimal in particular can kick on tomorrow, as no doubt he is a decent batsmen, but in my opinion, he was batting two slots to high in the batting order in the first innings.

As for England, it was a frustrating kind of day. I think the bowlers almost expected Sri Lanka to roll over again and they seemed to lack the nip that they had in the first innings. They all bowled fairly tidily against a much-improved batting performance on a fairly placid pitch, but there wasn’t the same intensity as there was yesterday afternoon. . It could just be that being out in the field for 5 sessions has jaded them somewhat, however you guess they will want to remove Chandimal and Siriwardana fairly early with the new ball in the morning; otherwise another frustrating session tomorrow morning might be in order. I thought Moeen bowled well, including an absolute peach of a delivery to get rid of Thirimanne and Woakes again was the quickest of the seamers, but all in all it looked like a day for batting

As for the match situation, England are still massive favourites to win the game tomorrow from here; however if Sri Lanka can eek out another 200 runs or so then England might face a tricky chase as you would expect this pitch to start to deteriorate at some point over the next couple of days. Amusingly, Sri Lanka also have the opportunity to ruin the Cook 10,000 runs party penciled in for his mates at Lords, indeed the cynic in me would quite like to see him stride out to the middle chasing a target of around 12 or so in front of a half empty Chester-Le-Street, but that’s just my cynicism getting the better of me!

Day 4 comments below….

England vs. Sri Lanka – 2nd Test, Day 2

Sir Ronald49 Comments

Well that was about a one sided day of cricket as you could possibly have wished for. Sri Lanka undid all of their good work in the field on Day 1 by dropping 2 dolly’s in the opening hour and then unfortunately the wheels truly fell off. Mooen played beautifully for his century and Anderson & Woakes in particular bowled extremely well, but this was quite horrible from Sri Lanka. They looked like a beaten team going through the motions and wanting to be off the cricket field and back at the team hotel as soon as they possibly could. Whereas you could have some sympathy with the tourists at Headingley when the ball was swinging round corners, there can be no sympathy here, the wicket is flat, the sun was out and there was hardly any swing, just a procession of poor shots from their batsmen.

Angelo Matthews was synonymous of this laissez-faire attitude and he can’t have had too many worse days as captain. From the 2 atrocious reviews in the field (and the equally atrocious review when he had clearly edged it) to the quite baffling field placements when Moeen was batting with the tail. Matthews looked absolutely lost on the field and it brought back memories of Day 4 of the Headingley Test back in 2014 when Cook absolutely lost the plot against the very same opponents. The fact that this Sri Lankan team has regressed so quickly is a sad indictment of the lack of talent they have coming through their domestic system and also clearly shows how much they relied on the superb Sangakkara and Jayawardene. With this Sri Lankan team stripped of these two talents, it looks a long and arduous road ahead for them.

As for Moeen, it was genuinely pleasing to see him convert a score into three figures, which is something he hasn’t done enough based on the talent he has. There is something bewitching about watching him bat from the languid covers drives to the stunning straight sixes he unfurls. Yes, he is slightly inconsistent and yes, you always feel that he could quite easily get out next ball (I don’t think he knows the word leave), but one thing I do know is that he is an entertainer with the bat, and we don’t have too many of them in this current England team. It is interesting that he has made both his century’s from number 7 (which I feel is probably his best position) as he didn’t have to spend most of his innings batting with the tail, the only problem being where do you fit Bairstow and Stokes in this batting line up when they are all fit? I’ll leave that one to the selectors, but in a way it’s a nice problem to have.

It was also good to see Chris Woakes have a positive impact with both ball and bat, though the former was the most important thing in my opinion. I wrote in my preview that Woakes really had to stamp his authority on the game to avoid being branded a ‘county trundler’ and I thought he bowled with decent pace and good rhythm and deserved the wickets that he got. It is clear that he has bulked up from when he first came onto the international scene and he is was the quickest of our seamers today. One swallow doesn’t make a summer and he needs to kick on now and start performing regularly on the International scene, but it was certainly a good to step in the right direction.

The one worry in our bowling unit is Steve Finn, who again looked out of rhythm and un-threatening. When Finn is bowling well, he bowls around 86 mph and hits the wicket hard (I’m afraid the injuries coupled with a certain David Saker have meant that the 90 mph bowler we once had, is sadly no more); however today and to an extent at Headingley, Finn was operating around the 82 mph mark and the ball seemed to be looping out of his hand, making him totally ineffective against what was shell-shocked Sri Lankan batting unit. Finn does seem to be the ultimate confidence bowler and when on form he has the ability to be as good as anyone out there, as he showed with some extremely good bowling displays in the Ashes last year; however when he is slightly out of form or low on confidence, the bowling action seems to fall apart a bit and he becomes almost docile. What you do with Finn at the moment is a tough one for Farbrace & Bayliss, drop him and you risk denting his confidence further or stick with him in the hope he comes good at the risk of carrying a passenger in the field, it’s not a call I would particularly like to make.

As for tomorrow, if England roll out the final two wickets early, then you would expect them to ask Sri Lanka to bat again and there beckons another 3 Day Test, which will also ensure a hefty loss for Durham. Whatever your thoughts on this England team or on Test Cricket in general, days like today are not a good advertisement for the longer form of the game. The reason I fell in love with Test Cricket was the duels and sub-plots of the longer game, the fair battle between bat and ball, not to see a match where one side continues to absolutely hammer another side. Perhaps I am being ungracious and maybe I should be over the moon that England are so in the ascendency in this Test series, but I personally think that rather misses the point.

Anyway Day 3 comments below (and just for WCTT’s information, I have not been paid for this article)…..

England vs. Sri Lanka – 2nd Test, Day 1

Sir Ronald24 Comments

I’m writing this with the caveat that I’ve only seen a few of the highlights of the day’s play, so it perhaps won’t be as comprehensive as some of the Test match reports on here!

I think England will reflect on it as a decent but not spectacular performance. Hales, Root and Bairstow all played well but no one was able to go on and make that big hundred that would have batted Sri Lanka out of the game. This is a criticism that I have had with the English batting unit for some time as they’re frustratingly consistently inconsistent. When looking back at many of our victories over the past couple of years, it has generally been our bowling that has won us the game with the odd decent support act from one of the front line batsmen (usually Root). If England do have real ambitions to get to the number 1 test position, then our batsmen will have stand up and be counted on a more consistent basis and that starts with converting those 60’s & 70’s into big hundreds.

Cook and Compton both failed again, with the latter falling to a fantastic catch and the former playing a fairly ordinary shot. I don’t like to ratchet up the pressure on any of our batsmen, but you do feel that Compton needs to score some runs in the second innings to prevent the ‘sack Compton’ campaign going into overdrive, however even then it may prove to be too late. It seems that England on average give our batsmen 15 games to prove themselves as an Test player – Morgan, Ballance and Buttler are all stuck on the 15 game mark (though I hasten to say the latter two still have realistic chances of representing England in the Test arena again). This is Compton’s 15th game today and unfortunately it seems it may be his last. As for Cook, the ‘all praise our hero’ media bandwagon has again had to be tucked away ready for another day.

As for Sri Lanka, they seemed to bowl fairly well as they did at Headlingley and the catches that they took to dismiss Compton and Hales were absolutely top drawer. The pitch doesn’t seem to be doing as much as it did at Headingley and if they can bowl out England for 350 and apply themselves sensibly, then we might actually have a fairly even contest on our hands. I think the morning session of tomorrow’s play will probably be the one that defines this Test Match.

On a final note, do try and listen to Jonathan Agnew’s interview with Graeme Fowler on TMS around cricket and mental health. I thought it was a truly superb interview and Fowler was extremely candid about his experiences of poor mental health. It was also heartening to see Monty Panesar coming out in the press about the challenges he faced with his mental health and how he feels in a better place now. The fact that he has been made an ‘Ambassador for Mental Health’ by the PCA hopefully shows that cricket is finally taking this issue seriously and that players will hopefully have the right structures in place should they find themselves in a similar position rather than being branded as ‘difficult individuals’.

I did say this would be a brief post – Day 2 comments below:

England vs. Sri Lanka – 2nd Test Preview

Sir Ronald57 Comments

So, we have the 2nd test upon us and the major question (no, it’s not an Alastair Cook one) has to be whether Sri Lanka can actually be competitive in these conditions? As Dmitri covered in his report of the last Test, England performed well bowling wise in seam friendly conditions and had Bairstow and Hales to thank for propping up the batting, but Sri Lanka were embarrassing. They looked like a Division 2 county team who had never come across these conditions and I’m not exactly hopeful they’re going to be much better this Test.

I do really worry about the future of Sri Lankan cricket to be honest, what with a weak domestic game and a Board showing the same greed and incompetence as the WICB have displayed for years, things don’t exactly look rosy in their garden at the moment. I sincerely hope they can rouse themselves for Durham after the pasting they received at Headingley, but in my mind they only have 1 international class batsman in their squad in Angelo Matthews and their best and most promising bowler has gone home injured with a stress fracture. It’s going to be a big challenge to say the least and I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if we saw another 3 day Test match.

As for England, they’ve unsurprisingly been hailed as world beaters again, which is a tad hasty to say the least in my opinion; however that is always the way with the English MSM, after all we’ve got the next Mike Brearley leading us now. The one player however, who seems to have inadvertently pissed on Selvey’s, Stock’s and Pringle’s chips in a former life is poor Nick Compton, who seems to be at the centre of an unpleasant whispering campaign from the Media. Whatever you think of Compton the batsman, and I personally think he’s a decent player who was treated awfully when he first came into international cricket, I think this sort of Chinese whisper campaign is at best unhelpful and at worst is slanderous. Indeed after the first Test it was left to Farbrace to address some of these unsubstantiated rumours: 

“I have read all the stuff about Nick’s intense personality,” Farbrace said. “But I have yet to meet a batman at the top level who is not intense about the way they prepare. He is passionate to score runs for England and I think a couple of scores back to back and he will be off and running. I would say his state of mind has been very good.

“He is not a difficult bloke. He is an easy bloke to work with and he is passionate about scoring runs. He has everything you need from a top quality batter. 

“We felt in South Africa he showed enough to suggest he can score runs in international cricket. He did not necessarily cement his position but we showed him faith by picking him.”

This doesn’t exactly tie in with the moody and difficult individual with few friends that is currently being portrayed in the MSM at the moment, so is this idle gossip from the hacks or is someone with an agenda leaking sound bites to old friends? I don’t think you need two guesses as to what my thoughts on the matter are. It seems that ‘if you’re not one of us, you’re one of them’ an individual from the ‘wrong type of family’ and as a result, no matter how many runs Compton does or doesn’t score this summer, his card has already been marked by those in the realms of power. I’m sure the ECB will phone up ISM to find someone else whose face ‘better fits’.

As to the makeup of the England team, I don’t see any changes occurring with Woakes replacing Ben Stokes as the all-rounder. Chris Woakes is an interesting case as his county stats indicate that he should be an international class cricketer – averaging 35 with the bat and 25 with the ball, indeed he took a 9 wicket haul against Durham this week to remind us how potent he can be (he’s just lucky that he was playing in Division 1, as we know, only Cook’s performances count in Division 2). However it is fair to say that he has looked at best innocuous in the Test arena and at worst a bit lost. I’ve seen an argument that he shouldn’t be judged yet as he hasn’t had a true run in the side to find his feet (6 tests spaced over 3 years), and this is a fair point, but you would think that with Stokes’ injury and a Sri Lankan team looking all over the shop against seam and swing bowling, that he needs to start turning those County performances into something more substantial in the Test arena to avoid being tagged as a ‘county trundler’. I’d also be surprised if they replaced Finn with Ball, despite the former looking a bit out of sorts with the ball in the First Test and Lord Selvey’s divine protestations.

On a final note, it will be interesting to see how many spectators turn up for the 2nd Test. I really feel Durham have been sold a turd here, especially against a Sri Lankan side who hardly turned up at Headlingley and on the back of a 2nd consecutive game in the North East. I do have particular sympathies for Durham with this, they’ve got a great ground, passionate fans and good facilities (despite the sparse public transport) and have always maintained aspirations for hosting Test Match Cricket; however the madness of the ECB bidding system combined with their vision to have at least 9 venues able to host Test cricket means that Durham have had to fork out the princely sum of £950k for the privilege of hosting this Test. This makes no financial sense whatsoever, Durham are forced to raise ticket prices, people therefore don’t attend and all they are left with at the end is a costly bill for a loss making exercise, no wonder they have had to approach the ECB, cap in hand, asking for a loan. Durham have no more Test matches scheduled after this one according to the current future Test calendar and one may sensibly interject that this could be the last ever match they hold there, which would be a sad indictment of the ECB’s cash before fan mentality. Of course, the ECB could rejig the order of Tests, so the Oval doesn’t automatically get the last Test of the main series, we could also agree a rotation of Test Grounds over a 4 year period and even strip away one of the Lords games each summer to make it a fairer playing field for all concerned; however London is where the ECB makes their money and the turkey’s running it aren’t suddenly going to start voting for Christmas any time soon. Spreading the game to the masses is a ‘nice to have’, but in reality it’s the money stupid!

Anyway Day 1 comments below:

England vs. Sri Lanka – Day 2

Sir Ronald80 Comments

TLG is now off on his travels and LCL is preparing for his holiday, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me tonight!

Day 2 started off as looking like it could be a close contest, but the mid-afternoon gloom, always a decisive factor at Headingley, combined with some great bowling from Anderson and Broad means there is a very real chance that this could be a 3 day Test. Whilst we shouldn’t take anything away from the English bowling this afternoon, it was a pretty meek surrender by an admittedly inexperienced Sri-Lankan batting line up in alien conditions.

I thought Sri-Lanka bowled well in the morning aided by the odd brain fart by the English batsmen. Chameera looks a real prospect having bowled extremely well in New Zealand over the winter and again deserved his wickets today and Pradeep whilst not being incredibly incisive, managed to keep a lid on the run rate. They’re not the world-beaters that Sanath Jayasuriya proclaimed them to be, but in helpful conditions they’re not a popgun attack either.

The fact that we got to nearly 300 is mainly down to the exploits of Jonny Bairstow, who aided by the Watford Wall, launched a counter attack innings that reminded be of Matt Prior in his prime and took the game away from Sri-Lanka in the hour before lunch. Bairstow has had a stop start beginning to his Test career and didn’t necessarily convince to begin with, but it seems like he now feels he belongs in the International arena and is backing that up with some serious performances to match. There have been some interjections that England should move him up to number 5 to accommodate a specialist wicket keeper (me included), but in hindsight I think it’s probably right to leave him where he is for now. Batting at 7 with the tail and often against the new ball is a specialist position and Bairstow seems to thrive on having the licence to attack at number 7.

A small word too for Alex Hales who fell short of his century after what can only be described as a fairly ugly shot. Whilst he didn’t make it through to three figures, I think he deserves some credit for battling through on what looked like a difficult pitch to bat on. I would like to see some more attacking intent from him, but it does look like he has worked on his game since the South Africa series and his footwork when playing outside of off stump looked far more assured. Is he the opener that we’ve been looking for, I’m not so sure, but I think he deserves the rest of the summer to try and cement his place.

A final note is reserved for the bowlers and especially James Anderson. Anderson is now touching on 34, a youngster in my book, but a veteran in cricketing terms. He seems to thrive in conditions such as the ones served overhead today and he bowled with great control throughout the whole innings. The ball that got rid of Shanaka was a typical example of how to bowl with favourable overhead conditions and was a trademark Jimmy wicket. There doesn’t seem to be another Anderson type bowler coming through the ranks, which must serve as a worry when he finally decides to hang up his boots.

On a side note it also the start of the “mediocre” T20 blast tonight with Essex vs. the ‘South London massive’ live on Sky. Now whatever you think of the English T20 competition (there are those that think it’s great and those who want a Franchise competition to replace it), I’m not sure it’s great form for the Chairman of the ECB to label it mediocre, especially when the organisation he works for is far less competent than mediocre. I’m sure his friends from Sky will have called him last night and tomorrow it will be world beating again, either that or he’ll be locked back in his cupboard for another year!

Anyway Day 3 comments below and with any luck you may get LCL back tomorrow so you don’t have to put up with my drivel.

Have a good evening.

Sean B

Update – Day 3 Comments below….