Sri Lanka in England/Netherlands

[andrew_nixon]

Once again we see England's inability to dismiss the tail quickly.

 

[hondeyho]

Once again we see England's inability to dismiss the tail quickly.

How many times have we seen that

Well current partnership has almost reached 50 runs and probably will when I finish this. Pietersen and Cook are going along at 6 an over -

Trail by 24 runs, 8 wickets, 12 overs left today. Very good commanding position.

 

[Yorkshire_No1]

How right I am. Bowling first was the key to England in my opinion. We are definately in the driving seat now thanks to quality bowling from all 5 bowlers even though Monty barely got his hand on the ball

 

[hondeyho]

There goes Cook, frankly we can't afford to lose any more wickets today - are they sending in Hoggard?

 

[cricket doctor]

England 138/3 at stumps and are in commanding position. Only threat tomorrow will be Murali.

 

[evertonfan]

I've just seen that Panesar drop on channel 5 (school tends to have a habit of getting in the way of live cricket!) and I have to say it was an absolute shocker, there is no excuses for that. I know Panesar maybe the better spinner than Giles, but i'd rather have the latter back playing for England again, the sooner the better!

 

[Adarsh]

Completely agree. He seems so clumsy in the field as well! I remember Pietersen dropping 6 in the Ashes but honestly I knew it was just temporary. You can make out by the way the players move whether they're good fielders or not. Panesar is the worst fielder I've seen for a long time. Worse than Ramesh Power - yeah, he's that bad.

 

[aussie1st]

Disappointing display of batting by SL. I thought after the last test they would have been confident in their batting. But instead they produce a new low for them. Unless rain comes along this match is England's unless they choke up like the 1st test.

 

[BigCrickNan]

Unless Murali chucks down a few good ones tommorow England will be in a great position. Sri Lankas pace attack again looked fragile, with Malinga the only very quick bowler. And he went at 7 rpo. England need to push on to about 400-500 and should win from their. One thing that also helps England is that their bowlers don't have to bowl for two innings in a row like at Lords.

 

[evertonfan]

I don't want to sound like a pundit here, but 2 hours of either Pietersen or Flintoff tommorow will put Sri Lanka out of the match, Murali needs to deliver if Sri Lanka want even the slightest chance of a positive result.

 

[puddleduck]

Kp seems to one of the rare batsman in World cricket that do not look ill at ease faceing Murali. Looked reasonably comfortable facing Warnie too. If he carries this on through his career, could be one of the best players of spin of his generation.

 

[BigCrickNan]

Kp seems to one of the rare batsman in World cricket that do not look ill at ease faceing Murali. Looked reasonably comfortable facing Warnie too. If he carries this on through his career, could be one of the best players of spin of his generation.

The good thing about KP against spinner is that he plays almost everything with the bat infront. This stops dismissals like Alistair Cooks today, KP would have put his bat out in front and hit it.

 

[Sureshot]

Once again we see England's inability to dismiss the tail quickly.

Slightly, although we did create chances that were dropped.

Although I wouldn't call Vaas a tail ender and with Malinga (He made 26 iirc) he was dropped by Monty for 0.

 

[puddleduck]

I would however say that when we end up bowling at lower order/tail enders we have a tendency to carry on trying to put the ball in the channel just ouside off-stump. As a tail-ender or lower order batsman, most of the time they will find it near impossible to get bat on ball, let alone edge to the keeper. Not enough in the way of bouncers aimed at the gloves with a short leg in place mixed with yorkers at leg stump seem to get bowled.

Was however nice to see Freddie often employing attacking fields today and in doing so creating pressure and instilling doubt in the batsmans minds.

 

[Englishandproud]

Have a great day matey! What you wearing? I'll look out for you whilst watching

Was it you that said earlier this is your first test match experience? If so should be a cracking day out for you, atmosphere at Edgebaston is always pretty good

I was wearing my Hednesford Town top the camera did pan across us one time apparently ( we ending up sitting by were all the noise was coming from)

Yeah it was my first test match, absolutely cracking game worth every penny, when we were struggling with the tailenders, the crowd just came to life with chanting and even a mexican wave (which was started by about 10 12 year olds, lol) ended up going round the whole ground (including some of the members )


Onto the game England bowled superbly in the first session and again came unstuck against lower order/tailenders also not being helped by the legand Monty Panesar dropping that catch, then we started well with the batting before Murali came onto bowl and Strauss got ran out stupidly, then the man himself, Mr Kevin Pietersen came into bat at one point he had scored 16 off just 9 balls !!!!!

Thought i was going to miss out on England batting when Sri Lanka won the toss however a combination of great bowling and poor batting led it to becoming a great first test match for myself.

I leave you with some of the great chants from the day :-

* All clap your hands if you hate The Green Team (The stewards)

* Get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, get the balllll (refereing to a stray ball making its way onto the field of play and asking for it back from the stewards) Later changed to Get the cap, get the cap etc.

* Oh Monty Monty Monty Monty Monty Panesar.

* Feddie Flintoff's Barmy Army, Barmy Army, Barmy Army