< 1 minute readHistorically, a drawn Test series in Sri Lanka is a pretty good result for England. Set against that is the fact that Muttiah Muralitharan doesn’t play any more. Sri Lanka’s bowlers are a bit middling. Should England have done better? Well we’re pretty happy with a draw, particularly after watching
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Mahela Jayawardene v England
< 1 minute readAs abysmal as England’s batsmen have been, the team would stand a pretty decent chance of beating Sri Lanka if they didn’t spend most of their time in the field attempting to dismiss just one of the two batsmen at the crease. If they’re in Sri Lanka, England are probably
Continue readingLahiru Thirimanne makes himself big
2 minute readBrace yourself, we’re going to mention football. One thing we learned from our years watching that soap opera-cum-sport is that a goalie should ‘make himself big’ when a forward is bearing down on him. The purpose of this is not, as you might think, to ward off predators. It is
Continue readingPlaying the long game in Sri Lanka
< 1 minute readSamit Patel’s cricket statistics are being weighed against his vital statistics even more frequently of late. Is he fit enough for five-day cricket? It’s an interesting question, but we’re actually more interested in how the other England players cope. Even if Patel plays, we can’t see a debutant playing the
Continue readingMaking sense of Test victories and defeats
< 1 minute readThe Test world is a baffling place right now. There’s more uncertainty than when the cat finds himself equidistant from some food and an open door. Australia are worse at home than they used to be, but India are worse away than they have been in recent times, so what
Continue readingThe deflation of Sri Lanka
< 1 minute readA lot of the life seems to have gone out of Sri Lanka since Murali’s retirement. On the face of it, the team’s much the same, but there’s a wrinkling and lack of solidity about them. They’re like yesterday’s balloon. They haven’t shown much heart according to Russell Arnold. Maybe
Continue readingLasith Malinga leads the bowlers
< 1 minute readIt’s nice to see bowlers being decisive in a Twenty20 match. Far too often they might as well just glue different mugshots onto a bowling machine and use that instead. In the Champions League final, Mumbai successfully defended 139. For a large proportion of the match, the commentators were talking
Continue readingA good pitch in Galle in Sri Lanka
< 1 minute readWe haven’t seen today’s play in the first Test between Sri Lanka and Australia, but having seen yesterday’s we’re opting to be quietly impressed rather than blown away by Nathan Lyon’s debut, despite the fact that he took 5-34 in Sri Lanka’s first innings. Why? Because he is bowling on
Continue readingSanath Jayasuriya’s last match
< 1 minute readSanath Jayasuriya has finally bowed out of cricket just three days short of his 70th birthday. He departed how he had thrived, with a ferocious cut shot. Asked to reflect on his career, Jayasuriya may or may not have said: “Eh? What? Speak up. Why does everybody mumble these days?
Continue readingKumar Sangakkara and holes in batting averages
< 1 minute readBuilding a reputation as a batsman is not unlike being a contestant on the perennially disappointing Nineties game show, The Crystal Maze. You spend your life in the nets, honing your technique and earning crystals and then you get to try and make the most of it in the Crystal
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