Sri Lanka in England/Netherlands

[puddleduck]

Glad you enjoyed your experience mate. In my opinion there is nothing quite like a day at the test

 

[irottev]

Typical Sri Lanka really. They look good one minute and terrible the next. I put that down to sooo much riding on the senior players sholders. They don't have a strong 11 players, but they have a strong 5 odd

 

[puddleduck]

Every test team bar Zimbabwe and possibly Bangladesh has at least 5 strong players. It is why test cricket often provides a far more realistic result than Odi cricket in regards to the strongest team. In Odi cricket if those 5 players are all on form, you stand a good chance. In test cricket, over 5 days, if only 5 players make a difference, you are going to struggle against a side that has 11 players making contributions.

God bless test cricket! Now come on English weather and let us just get on with our English summer please (rain during the Odis if you have to)

 

[BigCrickNan]

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.
.

I thinks theres not point giving a decent lower order batsman (Vaas, Brett Lee, Nicky Boje) bouncers every ball because they can stop them. For example in the ashes last year, i can't remember a time brett lee got bounced out.best way is to probably bowl on off-stump then bowl a few yorkers and bouncers.

 

[James219]

Unless Murali chucks down a few good ones

Nice pun....
Anyway, short-pitched stuff may not necessarily dismiss a lower order bat, but it can definitely intimidate them and drive them onto the back foot. But as you said, attacking the off-stump will always be the most effective method. Corrodor of uncertainty, right...
Great day for England, once again Sri Lanka's effort with the bat was poor- they just can't execute the basics well enough. A decent first innings total should leave Eng' firmly in control of the 2nd Test.

 

[puddleduck]

I thinks theres not point giving a decent lower order batsman (Vaas, Brett Lee, Nicky Boje) bouncers every ball because they can stop them. For example in the ashes last year, i can't remember a time brett lee got bounced out.best way is to probably bowl on off-stump then bowl a few yorkers and bouncers.

Yes as James219 pointed out the bouncers at the gloves with a short leg in place aren't necessarily aimed at getting wickets, they just force tail enders onto the back foot, making yorkers far more likely to cause problems and get you the wickets. Shoaib Akhtar does it excellently and rarely do tails wag when he plays.

Against England however, tails more often then not wag, and most of the time they just bowl at that off-stump and outside. Fair enough against the likes of Vaas, Lee, Vettori, who are all acomplished lower-order batsman, but once you get into the likes of a Murali you just want to get it full and straight, as they did this time.

This may sound a bizarre statement, but Englands bowler seem to trouble better batsman more. As they put the ball in the right areas with good movement, either off the seam or through the air, and as such only good batsman get their edge near it, let alone the bat. The tails more often then not just play and miss, and start building dogged, frustrating partnerships. In my opinion they miss a bowler who will bang a few short at the tail, and fire a few in at this feet, they instead treat them like batsman, and if they haven't got them out quickly, they begin to feel themselves like batsman and pick up valuable runs.

 

[Sureshot]

Decent start for us.

175-4 Hoggard bowled by Vaas. Did his job though.

PIetersen 61, and Vaas is bowling really well.

 

[cricket doctor]

Fantastic hundred by KP. Back to back hundreds. ENG going at the rate of 4 an over. :happy

 

[evertonfan]

Wow! I havn't witnessed an English batting colapse like that for a long time! Some pretty bad shots played there:

Pitersen: Great century, but got carried away when England needed him to push up the lead.

Flintoff: Good delivery but should have kept it out, Fred never really looked comfortable out there IMO.

Plunkett: Abysmal shot, the catcher barely moved for it!

Jones: Bad shot but i'll forgive him because he was batting with the tail.

Panesar: Well he was never going to last too long was he?

England have let Sri Lanka off the hook big time, and I fancy them making a decent total for us to chase, and we all know that England aren't all that comfortable when it comes to chasing totals!

 

[sohum]

I liked how Pietersen got out to Murali the over after Hussain started saying that Murali couldn't get class players out. However, that did come after an awesome reverse-swept sixer.

 

[CricketFan999]

Poor Tharanga, faced 3 balls this test, got no runs and got out twice.

 

[puddleduck]

Jones: Bad shot but i'll forgive him because he was batting with the tail.

I don't. Whenever he's under pressure to bat with the tail, he always gets out well before they do.

 

[BigCrickNan]

It looks like Evertonfans last prediction is going out the window, a bit liks evertons hopes . Good bowling again by England and poor batting by Sri Lanka, it shows that Murali does carry the Sri Lankan team most of the time.

 

[evertonfan]

It looks like Evertonfans last prediction is going out the window, a bit liks evertons hopes . Good bowling again by England and poor batting by Sri Lanka, it shows that Murali does carry the Sri Lankan team most of the time.

Hey that sly underhand pop at Everton's crapness is unnecessary! But as for my prediction, yes it was terrible, but I said it out of anger and frustation at that batting collapse! Still, remember at the end of the second day at Lord's? Sri Lanka were 91-6 and trailing by a LOT, and we still didn't win!

P.S, for all the stick I give to Panesar about his fielding, he bowled superbly today.

 

[puddleduck]

You must be reasonably young evertonfan? A fair few of us English fans were brought up on batting collapses being the standard

Difficult to get worked up about them these days, just be grateful that more often than not England are in an excellent position