I don't understand how broads place in the team is justifiable anymore.
lets be honest, Bresnan, who most people hate because he's chunky and short, has proven a better bowler. Anderson provides the much need new ball impetus and Finn and Tremlett look far better in the tall bang-it-in mould.
Broad looks decent maybe once every 7 or 8 tests. he's the Ian Bell of bowlers, and yeah, Bell has produced recently, but he's still nowhere near Englands best batsman. Was it really worth all the failures to get to where he is now? (one year younger than the significantly better Trott)
Not sure we absolutely need to focus on bowlers who can hold a bat, quasi all-rounders, when we have six batsmen and a batsman keeper in the side - and Swann who can hold a bat.
Broad last took 5+ wickets in a Test in six Tests ago, before that five Tests and
Test 23 : 6 wkts vs South Africa
Tests 24-28 : 13 wkts in five Tests
Test 29 : 6 wkts vs Pakistan
Tests 30-35 : 12 wkts in six Tests*
*including current Test
In that 13 Test period we have won eight Tests but five of those were over Bangladesh (2) and Pakistan (3)
As mentioned elsewhere his batting isn't needed 1/3 of the time anyway so we're effectively including someone as a bowler who's not doing a great job on the basis of his
batting.
Anyway, enough on Broad for the time being, back on the Test. Was is a surprise Sri Lanka fell away from a strong position? Not really I guess if you consider the theory of adding two wickets to the score (when three down) and their tail which has a 7-11 of Maharoof, Herath, Fernando, Lakmal and Welegedara which is pretty poor and I'd say three 10/11s and if you look at it individually it isn't great.
7. Maharoof - averages 18.53 in Tests, way too low for a seven. Bats more at eight, but does average 20.75 at seven - still not good enough for a seven.
8. Herath - averages 14.04 in Tests, not clever for an eight. Has batted most of his career at nine, although an 80no at eight does boost his average batting there to 28.80
9. Fernando - averages 7.25 in Tests, bats mostly at 10 with some ability but ideally you'd want that kind of batting ability at 10 or 11.
10. Lakmal - four Tests, scored two runs and this is the highest he's batted
11. Welegedara - seven Tests, 33 runs and dumped in below Lakmal
Maybe he just likes batting eleven, average of 6.60 is ok for 10 or 11
Can England force another win? Unlikely, not enough of a lead so they'd need to push on rapidly and leave a couple of sessions if they can. If they can add 150 in the morning session then they could put pressure on the lankans, but with a relatively inexperienced bowling line-up that includes Finn and Tremlett with Broad nothing to write home about, maybe that could be a little risky. But then again 300 runs in two sessions with no lower order to speak about is the kind of total that a few early wickets could make a winner.
re Strauss and the "cramping him for room" theory that supposedly Athers was raising. Maybe he watched the C5 highlights when they focused on him when cramped for room and how he prefers the ball across him (Friday highlights I believe)
:
