England in Sri Lanka March-April 2011/12

[puddleduck]

England need to start looking towards the future, guys like Christiaan Jonker, Pieter Malan, Francois le Clus, Brett Pelser, Aubrey Swanepoel, are all promising youngsters that have been scoring runs in domestic, but I've never even seen them mentioned as potential England players.

Haha genius

How quickly can we get them nationalised?

 

[barmyarmy]

@Sedition - this line-up was more than good enough last time round. You just stick to getting your confidence up against the other second tier sides...

 

[Sedition]

Oh, I will. Whilst beating up on Sri Lanka in SL and India isn't anything to write home about, we did a pretty convincing number on the one other top side, South Africa, on their soil. 1-1 in Tests, 3-2 in ODIs and 1-1 in T20s. Makes for pretty reading if you ask me. We also haven't lost to Pakistan in that time.

 

[Rohit Doshi]

You're right. Would be more appropriate for the Indian top order...

Exactly None in both the side look like retiring from international cricket. Stupid people naming a wrong series. This name of this series should have been during England India series few months from now when after consistently failing in SC conditions few English will get frustrated and retire

 

[barmyarmy]

21/9 weren't you? Even we've not sunk that low.

And let's not forget your series draw at home against the might New Zealand.

 

[Sedition]

I don't remember the exact numbers of where we were and when, but I think we closed that innings at around 50. The pitch was more volatile than the jungles of Vietnam, as we demonstrated by bowling South Africa out for well under a hundred as a precursor. I mean, if we can do that to a full South African team, imagine what lays ahead for half a South African team.

I don't recall any NZ series.

 

[Owzat]

138/8, Swann keeping England in the hunt but if the batsmen are going to let the bowlers down again then it could be 50 all out and we'd still be 2nd favourites.

Stewart's article is well worth a read :

BBC Sport - Alec Stewart: England's batting shows they are mentally scarred

Alec Stewart: England's batting shows they are mentally scarred

Former England captain and BBC Radio 5 live summariser England's batting display in the first innings of the first Test against Sri Lanka was dismal.

They scored at more than four runs per over but were bowled out for 193 in 46.4 overs. That smacks of a batting side who aren't in control of what they are trying to do.

If you look at the dismissals, only Alastair Cook and Ian Bell were really 'got out' by good bowling. The rest were either undone by poor shot selection, picking the wrong length, or pre-meditated shots.

England's problems are mental rather than technical. Speaking from my experiences, once you get a confused and clouded mind, your decision-making can be poor.

The England players appear to be mentally scarred by what happened against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, where they came horribly unstuck against two top-class spinners in Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman.

Simply put they are so fragile mentally when it comes to playing spin they don't know how to approach batting and it increases the threat spin poses. I question England's preparation on so many levels, maybe if they'd prepared properly for UAE and spent weeks just working on playing spin in terms of technique via practice as well as working out their strategy mentally then I think we'd have scraped a drawn series.

I would even consider a reshuffle of the order, let someone else open so they face the opening bowlers and move Cook and maybe even Strauss down the order to face the spinners and not face early dangers of other kinds.

I'd be more inclined to agree with people re dropping of players over a few bad Tests compared to a good summer or whatever IF the batsmen were being got out and not contributing to their own demise. It has a domino effect, and if you don't change the batsmen then when physically nothing is different how do we expect it to be psychologically...............? Not least if Bell say had been dropped at least the others would have feared for their places a little, at the moment England promote "it's ok to fail as a batsman (but not if you're a bowler)" and that can't be good.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

I don't think England have any better batsmen to play spin bowling available to them at the moment. They gotta stick with what they have.

 

[barmyarmy]

Well Vaughan reckons England can chase 300. I agree to the extent that if they see off the new ball and don't give away early wickets they're capable but I think the confidence is too low and they'll be bowled out for 190ish again.

 

[swacker]

Herath is the third highest wicket taker for SL in Tests with [email protected]. He suffered in a similar way to Stuart McGill, having the bad luck to share his time with an all time great.


One thing that keeps on getting overlooked when people are talking about post-Murali Sri Lanka, is that they forget that SL also lost Malinga to Tests at around the same time.

 

[barmyarmy]

Totally frustrating bowling. We always seem to think that the only way to get tailenders out is to pepper them.
Just pitch it up and hit the stumps.

And gifting them more runs. Dropped catches, wickets off no balls and now dreadful fielding when it should have been a runout.

 

[barmyarmy]

Well this match has gone. Some poor bowling in the last hour, too short, but I don't blame the bowlers overall. I blame the batsmen.
Obviously best we can now do in a 2 match series is 1-1. Very disappointing.

 

[Rohit Doshi]

England really? You give 51 runs to tail? Although thats less then what we gave you

Match I still say is evenly poised and if they can bat sensibly they will win this for sure. 200 odd overs is damn possible

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From Cricinfo

Sri Lanka's last three wickets in this Test have added 226...

Well that sums up this test match

 

[Iridium]

Strauss to lead the side with a ton. Long overdue, as was Swann's 5-fer.

 

[barmyarmy]

A team requiring a record run chase does not equate to equally poised.