Sri Lanka in England 2011

[lewissaffin]

I thought Michael Atherton did a fantastic piece of Sky Sports about Kevin Pietersen's weakness against left-arm spin. He started at the very beginning of KP's problem (against Yuvraj Singh) right up to now and showed how Trott and Bell played Herath without much of a problem.

Ian Bell looks set for a century tomorrow..

 

[crazyrahul]

Oh my god, this man is really consistent over last year. Jonathon Trott, you rocked again !!!

Hats off

 

[Haarithan]

Sri Lanka played a game of negative cricket as far as their spin bowling was concerned . Herath was just bowling rubbish lengths which was deserving enough to be penalized . Atleast Dilshan varied his areas of bowling a bit .

 

[barmyarmy]

Bore draw sadly with the pitch and weather. Can't see England declaring too early with Jimmy Anderson injured.

 

[lewissaffin]

England should bat for another 60 runs or so, hold a lead of 150-odd, and have a really good go at Sri Lanka on a potentially useful day five pitch.

 

[angryangy]

Convoluted anglo-indian discussion can be found in the soon to be convoluted Indian tour thread

Consider this an... instruction

 

[Owzat]

That is rather tragic to say the least . I still remember the Lord's test against India in 2007 when England were a wicket away from clinching the first test . But rain poured down for the next one and a half days , it not only saved India the test match , but also won them the series .

Actually Vaughan went a long way to gifting India the series with negative tactics. 1st Test at Lords, England were in a good position to push onwards for victory but Vaughan was typically overcautious and wanted to reduce the runs to over/time equation further ie he was more worried about the outside chance of them winning than he was about precious time for England to force victory.

England vs India (Lords, 2007)

England 1st Inns 298
Strauss 96, Vaughan 79. Sreesanth 3/67

India 1st Inns 201
Jaffer 58. Sidebottom 4/65. Anderson 5/42

England 2nd Inns 282*
Pietersen 134. Khan 4/79, Singh Jr 5/59.

India 2nd Inns 282/9
Khartik 60, Dhoni 76no. Tremlett 3/52


* England were 251/5 at the end of over 66 in the 2nd innings, a target of 349 for India to chase with five wickets to add quick runs. Pietersen fell at the end of the 77th over, a full ELEVEN overs later with just 24 runs having been added. England extended their total by 31 runs over those last dozen overs or so, but in truth it was just valuable time wasted with no guarantee there'd be enough time for the precious runs to overs/time equation remaining the same with weather and light always a worry.

I'm not just saying that in retrospect, I thought it at the time. Maybe pushing on quicker would have ended the innings up to 20 runs worse off, BUT in a three Test series you can't assume you'll get many good chances to win and be on top and that proved England's best and only chance which they squandered. Ended up with Vaughan himself bowling four overs for 18 runs at the end, a bit more urgency when batting and England would have been bowling the same situation a few overs earlier with a pace bowler.

It's little wonder Vaughan never beat India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka in a Test match as captain in ELEVEN attempts. You can look at raw stats and say he was "great", but he wasn't. FOURTEEN of his 26 wins as captain were over Bangladesh (4) and West Indies (10), with a further six over the kiwis. Sure he won the Ashes with a very good side against an excellent side, but that was only by 2-1 and two runs and three wickets win margins in the Tests themselves. He grabbed a fine win in South Africa as well, but that was the peak of it.

Vaughan (captain)

vs AUS/SAF : P17 W6 D5 L6 (Won 35.3%)
vs PAK/IND/SRI : P11 W0 D7 L4 (Won 0.00%)
vs NZE/WIN/BAN : P23 W20 D2 L1 (Won 86.96%)

Six wins in 28 Tests against the better sides says it all, but that is covered up by playing West Indies in about 1/4 of his Tests and HALF his Tests as captain were over sides England beat pretty regularly (these days, West Indies were a force up until around 2000)

 

[Owzat]

England should bat for another 60 runs or so, hold a lead of 150-odd, and have a really good go at Sri Lanka on a potentially useful day five pitch.

England should have forced the pace earlier, and indeed do so when play resumes. In truth there may not be enough play for England to take five wickets let alone ten if the declared overnight - especially with Broad not that effective, Anderson likely not to bowl and that doesn't leave much more to pin your hopes on bar Swann.

You could even argue a strong case for an overnight declaration, if England are going to win they'd need to bowl Sri Lanka out for less than 200.

25 overs : England 50/2 (50 runs, RPO 2.00)
50 overs : England 138/2 (88 runs, RPO 3.52)
75 overs : England 213/2 (75 runs, RPO 3.00)
100 overs : England 305/2 (92 runs, RPO 3.68)
125 overs : England 368/4 (63 runs, RPO 2.52)
150 overs : England 468/5 (100 runs, RPO 4.00)

While you expect some innings building and caution early on, England still haven't pushed on as much as they could have done a lot more. Maybe Strauss just doesn't know how to try and win the game, thinking maybe England should bat only once but every morning more time is lost and he's got Vaughan syndrome which is more worried about losing. Of course England are without a bowler, maybe they've settled for the draw despite being on top and sides can win games with only three bowlers taking the wickets between them. Could actually work in England's favour as Strauss would have to give them short spells or use a part-timer at which point you may as well shake hands for the draw.

The game is likely to end in a draw, normally I say if the 1st innings' aren't completed by the end of day three (or near enough completed) then you are heading for a draw. That's either because the pitch is flat and it's 400+ vs 400+, or because weather has had too much say.

 

[lewissaffin]

England should have forced the pace earlier, and indeed do so when play resumes. In truth there may not be enough play for England to take five wickets let alone ten if the declared overnight - especially with Broad not that effective, Anderson likely not to bowl and that doesn't leave much more to pin your hopes on bar Swann.

You could even argue a strong case for an overnight declaration, if England are going to win they'd need to bowl Sri Lanka out for less than 200.

25 overs : England 50/2 (50 runs, RPO 2.00)
50 overs : England 138/2 (88 runs, RPO 3.52)
75 overs : England 213/2 (75 runs, RPO 3.00)
100 overs : England 305/2 (92 runs, RPO 3.68)
125 overs : England 368/4 (63 runs, RPO 2.52)
150 overs : England 468/5 (100 runs, RPO 4.00)

While you expect some innings building and caution early on, England still haven't pushed on as much as they could have done a lot more. Maybe Strauss just doesn't know how to try and win the game, thinking maybe England should bat only once but every morning more time is lost and he's got Vaughan syndrome which is more worried about losing. Of course England are without a bowler, maybe they've settled for the draw despite being on top and sides can win games with only three bowlers taking the wickets between them. Could actually work in England's favour as Strauss would have to give them short spells or use a part-timer at which point you may as well shake hands for the draw.

The game is likely to end in a draw, normally I say if the 1st innings' aren't completed by the end of day three (or near enough completed) then you are heading for a draw. That's either because the pitch is flat and it's 400+ vs 400+, or because weather has had too much say.

I agree entirely with that: Strauss should be a more attacking captain and England, with Pietersen, Bell and Morgan in the hutch, should have looked to knock the ball around at upwards of 4/4.5 an over.

It is all well and good that we can say Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook are two of (if not the most) in-form batsmen in the world right now but that claim is somewhat nullified if the team can't get a win.

 

[barmyarmy]

I don't agree that England should have been forcing the pace. The best way to lose the game would have been to play silly shots and concede a first innings lead.
Bottom line is that it's not a good pitch and even without dreadful weather it would probably have been a draw.

 

[ferg512]

I've hardly watched any of this game but sounds like I haven't missed much. Could be one of the worst tests of all time, maybe?? Even worse that its at Cardiff. I liked it when they started the summer off at Lords.

 

[lewissaffin]

I don't agree that England should have been forcing the pace. The best way to lose the game would have been to play silly shots and concede a first innings lead.
Bottom line is that it's not a good pitch and even without dreadful weather it would probably have been a draw.

But, at the end of the day, even if we were to fold for around 300-350, there is still little chance of a result as Sri Lanka still would have had to bat again first. Even if England had forced the pace, they probably wouldn't have won the match but I think it was worth a shot.

Still, this adds extra significance to the Lords Test Match, the tickets of which are going at ?5 each if you look under 16

 

[angryangy]

The trouble is that when England try to force the pace, they inevitably throw away the wickets that they would otherwise have used to score at a decent rate.

In retrospect it seems acceptable that Sri Lanka made 'only' 400, but at the time, we were all expecting wickets to fall. England can bowl a lot better than that, but they can't bat that much better than they have.

 

[barmyarmy]

Strange decision there for me. Just to add 6 so Bell can get his 100 seems silly. They should either have declared before play started or tried to add 40 or 50 as quickly as possible.

 

[Haarithan]

Strauss seems kind hearted after this decision to add only 6 runs to the total solely for Bell's century. C'mon England , you did it four times against pakistan last year , just do it one more time of dismissing the Lankans for a score less than 100 . I can but dream .