Sri Lanka in England

 Fair point Sam ,Mikey. Had better weather prevailed SL could have most likely been in the dock a lot more. They may not be a Bangladesh or Zim but with Malinga's unforeseen and impetuous retirement they no more belong to the Top4 either I'm afraid,  esp. away from home.

Collingwood's days are surely over - gone are the days when England selectors swapped and changed from day to day.   I'll be watching Keiswetter in this one day series , apparently he's been working with Graham Thorpe who's instilled in him the need to protect his stumps!  With Malinga back in the side those opening overs will be well worth watching - it should be a close run series.

A very ordinary performance by England yesterday, I have to say both Woakes and Dernbach are quite ordinary bowlers, I was not at all impressed by Woakes even during the series in Australia just before the WC. 

So Cook starts off win an emphatic win , but he didn't have much to do with it !  Out for just 5 , the rest of the batsmen contributed in the rain affected match.  Reduced to 32 overs England's 229 was always going to test the visitors.  Keiswetter looked much better after a shaky start and Morgan , KP and Bresnan did well.  As a contest , Jimmy Anderson ended it very quickly by getting Dilshan , Jayawardena and Sangakkara in quick succession. He took three catches as well - one a beauty at mid wicket to get rid of Mathews to give Dernbach his 1st one day wicket.   He came back to take one more and finish with 4-18 - a fine performance.  Swann took 3-18 to give England the win by a massive 110 runs.    Jayasuriya took a wicket in his last match , but failed again with the bat , getting just 2.  He received a standing ovation as he traipsed off , which I found a little unsettling as he only played because of political interference,  It'll be interesting to see if the Lankans improve now he's out of the way.

Edited by Sledger - 29 June 2011 at 6:52am

A day game today , which makes a pleasant change. I'm still of the opinion that one dayers played in the daytime are the fairest and winning the toss doesn't really matter.

Apparently ther's only a 10% chance of rain Clobs - if the weather bureau is to be believed !

 Good steady opening stand by the English openers as they bring up their fifty stand. Five years back at this very ground in an ODI involving these two teams SL successfully chased a 320+ target .I'm sure the poms will have that at back of their mind.



 Oops 53/1 and I'm leaving!!! How does that always happen???


Edited by vote4peace - 01 July 2011 at 3:47pm

Sri Lanka is a completely different team in this format... and so is England.

Sri Lanka's middle order deficiency and obvious issue with fast bowling are completely masked in the shorter format, their medium pacers are much more useful when bowling 10 overs.

England have the talent base, it's just a matter of time before they start winning. India's advantage over England is that they are excellent across all formats.

 True Mikey Sri Lanka are an entirely different outfit when it comes to the shorter format.

That probably because the role of the bowlers diminishes, as compared to the batsman's, shorter the format duration.  Mahela return to form and the Malinga/Mathews addition could be the other factors.

Chandimal played well but Jayawardena was in sparkling form.  Jayawardena's placement and timing was as superb as you'd see.  I can watch guys like these bat anyday of the year!

 Green pitch means Advantage England. Should restrict the free flowing strokeplay and honestly SL's clearly got more better strokemakers. Exactly what they should've done for the previous two games too. Getting the conditions heavily stocked to the home team's liking isn't unfair in anyway. 

 The pressure is mounting on Broad to deliver the goods. This should be a good place to start. Still thing he shouldn't have got the armband in T20.
 
 England's been quite adept in the longest form of the game, somehow they have not been able to make the transition in the 50 format of the game. I for one can't quite pin-point the reason. Look at the team , it is a very capable one. No need of tinkering too much with the order, just need to start a winning streak and with the momentum I'm sure other things will fall into place.

England don't have the strokemakers, but Sri Lanka don't have the toilers and hence they won't win many tests away from home. Jayawardene has to be the most overrated batsman to ever play. Average of 53 in tests but he's no Greg Chappell. His average in the WC in South Africa in 2003 was 4 and his run making ability hasn't been proven at all in Australia, England or South Africa. I think SL really need to reflect on what they need to do to produce batsmen who can make runs outside of the subcontinent. India have done that and look where they are now - no.1 in the world. This 'probe' into Sangakkara's comments could find him without a national job, just like Gayle, and that would mean losing one of the few players who can make runs on bouncy tracks.

 Meanwhile the fourth ODI seems to be going precisely according to the script. Sri Lankan batsmen like a cat on a hot pan. At 11/3 wobbly would be a little kind.

 Big toss for the English.

Originally posted by vote4peace  And as expected Sanga's historic speech hasn't gone down well with the concerned bureaucrats . The country's sports minister responds to Kumar's scathing remarks...    "He has to get permission. He can't talk about the cricket administration or cricket," sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage told Reuters. "He can say anything about him." (sic)  Close to being the stupidest thing I've heard in sometime. And these are the buffoons who run the sport. I can see where Sangakkara was coming from.

 Cricinfo is carrying Sangakkara's speech in it's entirety and is well worth a look.  My admiration for Sangakkara has reached a new high - I've always had the greatest respect for his intelligence and his cricketing ability and now his integrity and courage have elevated him even higher.  Simply a fine man , someone every Sri Lankan can be justifiably proud.

If that happens I'd like to think that his teammates have the courage to speak out and have him returned to the side . If that falls on deaf ears , they should go on strike !