England v Sri Lanka 2016

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….

 

England vs Sri Lanka: 1st Test, day one

thelegglance63 Comments

Unless the team batting first has an absolute horror then the first day invariably leaves the spectator unsure of where the match is going, even more so if a session is lost to the weather.  171-5 is not a great score, that’s certain, but as ever with Headingley the context of the overhead conditions and the pitch may mean it is better than it first appears.  Equally however, the movement off the seam and in the air was anything but prodigious – enough to keep the bowlers interested and the batsmen wary, but no minefield.  Therefore conclusions are entirely impossible to draw except to say that both teams will probably be fairly content with their work overall.  Sri Lanka have dismissed half the side and will hope to wrap up the rest reasonably quickly, while England have recovered well from the parlous position of 83-5.

That they did so was down to one player batting against type and another who is finding Test cricket rather easy at the moment – with the bat anyway.   Alex Hales found himself in the probably unfamiliar position of having to hold the innings together, and as a result batted cautiously throughout.  Without his knock England would have been in dire straits.  And yet it is to be hoped that Hales doesn’t see this as his role in future, for there are much better defensive openers in the game than him, and in the South African series he appeared to be struggling to try and play a game different from that at which he excels.  He does have technical limitations, but so does David Warner, and it isn’t a problem there because his role is to be the dasher.  When in, such players are devastating, but they can be knocked over cheaply by quality bowling.  Today Hales had little choice and deserves immense credit for battling his way through, but it would be a waste of what he is capable of if that is to be how England see him batting, for it is hard to see how he can succeed over the longer term.  But as England’s David Warner, well it might still be a long shot to be as effective, but it’s probably his best chance.  Today however, it was just right.

Jonny Bairstow is either in the form of his life or has thoroughly found his feet at the highest level, and perhaps something of both.  Middle order players who can turn the tide are invaluable, and England have a couple in the shape of him and Ben Stokes.  Ah yes, Ben Stokes.  It didn’t take long for the knives to come out concerning a poor shot.  As needs repeating time and time again, Stokes plays this way.  You cannot stand and cheer if the ball he was out to had gone just out of reach of the fielder and sped away for four – same shot, different outcome.  When Stokes is batting well, he chances his arm and gets away with it, the margins are that narrow, and it is as it always was, two sides of the same coin.  The glory of run a ball double centuries come with the disappointment of poor shots for not very many, it really cannot be something people have both ways.  His overall performance is the key, because there will be glorious highs and abject lows.

Naturally, the pre-match build up and the rain breaks were dominated by the whole story around Alastair Cook approaching 10,000 Test runs.  Sky went as preposterously over the top as they always seem to with all things Cook, offering an interview that was about as incisive as a This Morning chit chat, with unquestioned adoration of the Great Man throughout.  Cook did say that he just wanted the whole thing over with, and that would be quite understandable, for the use of him as an icon by broadcaster, media and the ECB is not his fault.  They have successfully turned what is undoubtedly going to be a fine achievement into something that has created serious irritation at the nature of the idolatry.  It’s quite an achievement, and it is to be strongly suspected that Cook is uncomfortable with the circus.  It’s a great pity, for achievements should be celebrated, instead they are having to be qualified because of the excessive claims.  Cook will get to 10,000 and he will and should be extremely proud of himself for it.  He’s been a fine player with power to add.

For Sri Lanka the man of the day was clearly Dasun Shanaka, who received his first Test cap before play began, and then came on as the fifth bowler just before lunch and promptly removed Cook, Compton and Root in the space of eight balls.  As debut victims go, that’s not bad at all.  He lacks pace, and bowls the kind of line and length that should have county coaches purring, and the ECB grinding their teeth having so recently announced the death of such bowling in the English game. Headingley has often rewarded bowlers of this nature, being the only ground where (back in the days they actually got more than the occasional Test) the phrase “horses for courses” would routinely make an appearance pre-selection.

One final thing to note, in two sessions of play only 53 overs were bowled.  It is unlikely this would have speeded up in the final session, and quite clearly the ICC no longer care, for fines for slow over rates appear to be a thing of the past, let alone suspensions.  It is of course one day, and one curtailed day at that.  But the pattern has been in place for quite some time.

My flight tomorrow is at 16:05 from Heathrow, so that is it from me for this Test and this series, though I daresay something will annoy me enough to post over the next month.  I’ll probably add some travel observations to my travel blog (I’ve already put up an intro for this trip – and if you’re interested in Myanmar, there’s plenty there from the last one), which is http://www.thelegglance.wordpress.com if you feel so inclined to say hello, otherwise, back in mid June!

Enjoy the rest of the Test – oh and day two comments below.

Chris

Take my Problem to the United Nations

thelegglance104 Comments

Ah, May.  A time for the preparation of pitches up and down the summer, for club batsmen to walk ruefully back to the pavilion having horribly mistimed one that stuck in the pitch, and for England to begin their Test schedule for the year with the joys of what is always a warm up series no matter how they try and pretend otherwise.  And this year it’s Sri Lanka.  Again.  It was only two years ago they were last here, when of course they rather memorably won a two Test series, where Alastair Cook had a thorough meltdown as captain, where the glorious Kumar Sangakkara scored a memorable hundred at Lords, and where Jimmy Anderson ended in tears at being out to the penultimate ball to settle the result.

Now apologies are due for mentioning any of that, but it seemed wise, given that this particular series appears to have been wiped from the collective memory banks of the great and good in the media, but it was remarkable for the contrast between sublime and shambolic, and more remarkable still for apparently never having happened.  Yet to come back only two years later for another go is in itself worthy of comment.   It’s really Bangladesh’s turn, who haven’t been to England since 2010, and aren’t scheduled to either.  It will be at least ten years between tours of England for them, and most likely longer.  Pretences about the sanctity of Test cricket and the importance of the game should always be viewed in the context of the ECB not remotely caring about Bangladesh.  The same applies of course to Zimbabwe but here at least they can point to the government not allowing them over, but given the Bangladesh situation, it is not exactly radical thought to believe it would be no different.

Instead we have a young, inexperienced Sri Lanka side shorn of their greats, who in May conditions in the north of England should be beaten comfortably.  There are a couple of points about the venues for these games, Lords of course gets two Tests each summer, but after last summer’s Ashes which didn’t venture north of Nottingham, only one of the main event against Pakistan is in the north of England (Old Trafford).  With Headingley and Chester-Le-Street selected for the lesser series, and only one of the Pakistan series in the north, a year after none of the Ashes matches were suggests that the jibe that Strauss and the others won’t venture outside London seems to have some validity.  Perhaps the ECB boxes aren’t as good.  Indeed, last year and this London will have had six Tests, while the whole of the north of England only four – and only one of those against the main attraction of the summer.

The second issue that always crops up is the supposed unfairness of Sri Lanka and other similar sides being forced to play in the colder spring rather than in conditions more conducive, and here the sympathy is in less abundance.  For few complain about England being forced to play in the heat of Colombo, and it’s no different in principle.  Touring sides play in alien conditions, that’s always been the case, and England don’t get given a free pass for when it doesn’t suit them, and nor should they.

What it does mean is that England’s defeat last time around remains one of the more abject in recent times, made worse by being largely self-inflicted on so many levels.  It is unlikely this will be repeated in 2016, for England, for all their faults, are a better side than they were then, and Alastair Cook’s captaincy has been unquestionably liberated by the replacement of Flower and Cook and is, if not exactly dynamic, rather more competent than it was two years ago.

Cook himself will almost certainly reach the landmark of 10,000 Test runs this series, and it is undoubtedly an achievement of serious merit.  What it won’t be is the mark of all time greatness that the thoughtless will undoubtedly bestow on him.  It is so often regarded as being sour, but it is simply being realistic.  Cook is an excellent player and one of the best England have had in the last 30 years.  He has technical problems certainly, but his ability to overcome them is worthy of high praise, and his concentration levels are genuinely astounding.  When he’s in, he grinds on remorselessly.  So it is nothing other than setting it in context, that a player who plays as long as he has done is likely to reach landmarks that those of the past could only dream about even if they played for the same period in terms of years.  The 16 Tests across the calendar year of 2016 are evidence of that.  Number of Tests played is now the indicator, not time and certainly not age, no matter how often some try to roll out the stat about reaching landmarks earlier than Tendulkar.

Hyperbole rules across so many areas of modern life, but it creates entirely unnecessary resentment by hagiographical approaches to what is a fine achievement on its own terms, without trying to pretend it is something else.

James Vince seems quite likely to make his debut in this series after the health enforced retirement of James Taylor, and he will join a batting order that is still somewhat in flux.  Joe Root, Cook himself, Ben Stokes are all secure, but this is a big series for Alex Hales and also for Nick Compton.  Hales had his troubles in South Africa but is not the first at the top of the order to have had difficulty against strong opposition.  Indeed his record in that series was barely any different from Cook himself, which within the context of one of those players having a thoroughly established record and the other not, still needs to be considered  – seemingly the selectors have done so.  Yet it is probably the case that this series is where Hales needs to make some kind of impact.  Given England’s remarkable ability to go through openers not called Cook (sometimes even when they’ve done better than someone called Cook) it is to be hoped that some stability is around the corner.

Compton on the other hand did ok in South Africa.  Not outstanding, certainly, but he did alright.  The scrutiny on him always appears to be more about his character than anything else – precedents have been thoroughly set.  Further down the order Jonny Bairstow’s main task is to improve his wicketkeeping.  He had a wonderful series with the bat in South Africa, but less so with the gloves.  He’s a part time keeper over much of his career, and patience is needed with him.  Most of the mistakes he made were those of someone who doesn’t do it all the time.  He will get better, and if delving into the dangerous territory of predictions, it would be to say that as his keeping does get better, he’ll go through a drop in batting form.  Getting both disciplines to work at the same time is always a tough challenge.

The exclusion of Ian Bell from this series does suggest England are unlikely to go back to him.  It is to be hoped that England have at least told him where he stands, and done so on the basis of truth not expediency.  England are just terrible at this – there comes a time when it is right to move on, but they so rarely handle it well.  Which brings me to another matter: In the women’s team, Charlotte Edwards’ more or less enforced retirement was entirely out of keeping with the service she has given England over 20 years.  It may well be entirely the right decision to go with younger players, but surely it cannot be right for someone who gives half their life to the England cause (much of which was not paid remember) to be unceremoniously discarded that way.  Cricketing decisions need to be made, but respect is due to her for her achievements and commitment, and it appears to have been forgotten.  Her statement that it came as a shock suggests no-one had talked to her about how they saw the future over the last year, and that’s just poor for such a great servant.  It is is easy to add two and two and make five, so let’s just say it is to be hoped that Sarah Taylor’s sabbatical is unrelated to the management of that.

The Test series beginning tomorrow is one that I shall miss almost in its entirety.  Work is calling and I shall be out of the country until the middle of June (Thailand, Laos and Indonesia if you’re asking – and you haven’t) so all the comments will be my means of keeping up with what has happened.  See you on the other side.

Day One comments below please