Sri Lanka v England 2nd Test Match Thread

[Duty281]

First topic message reminder :

Not too early for this is it? After their 'heroic' defeat last Thursday, England will need a win to tie the series and preserve their no.1 ranking while Sri Lanka need a win or tie to win the series.

England's preparations haven't been helped by the fact that Broad will miss out due to injury while Sri Lanka's have been boosted by the news that Mathews will return from injury. Cricinfo predicts the following line-ups with two changes for each team:

Sri Lanka (probable) 1 Lahiru Thirimanne, 2 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 3 Kumar Sangakkara, 4 Mahela Jaywardene, 5 Thilan Samaraweera, 6 Angelo Mathews, 7 Prasanna Jayawardene, 8 Suraj Randiv, 9 Rangana Herath, 10 Dhammila Prasad, 11 Suranga Lakmal.

England (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Ian Bell, 6 Matt Prior (wk), 7 Samit Patel, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 James Anderson, 11 Steve Finn.

The pressure is really on Andrew Strauss, for his batting (justified) and his captaincy (unjustified). England's batsmen will also be feeling the heat as well - they haven't made over 400 so far this winter!

Keep an eye out for the rain, some is predicted on the first day. Game starts at 5:30 BST. Come on England!

[Mike Selig]

So a pretty even day , no?

If England can wrap it up cheaply tomorrow they'll be very pleased , but that will have to wait to the morning...

A word for Prior : two nice catches , first up and late in the day , and he has done nothing wrong on between , in hot and trying conditions. As well as his good solid batting , he has become a very accomplished keeper .

A very good day's test cricket. England bowled well, Sri Lanka looked like they would finish on top then a couple of late wickets. England slightly on top I would say given the momentum, if they can wrap things up fairly quickly tomorrow (say for around 270-280) they've at least given themselves a chance. The pitch will deteriorate and fairly quickly I think, so England must just bat well in their first innings.

Agree entirely about Prior, that was a very good catch to get Jayawardene in the circumstances.

[Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler]

Simple fact is Sri Lanka have 3 very good test batsmen, and a couple of dangerous ones. The rest of the side are pretty ordinary.

Winning the toss is still looking huge for Sri Lanka, but England have to be content with where they got to in this day even if it couldve been better. Sri Lanka shouldnt get to 350 from here, so theres always a chance. I just dont have a lot of faith in the batting to put two solid innings in a row together.

Jayawardene did appeal his wicket, I think it was one of those "umpires decision" ones with the ball clipping. Fair decision.

[alfie]

Indeed , everything to play for tomorrow...hope for another such fascinating day ... And of course praying England get it right with the bat at last , heaven knows they have had enough mistakes to learn from in the last little while...

See you all tomorrow.

[Guest]

wonder if anything will happen about the flower going into 3rd umpire about the review..

[Mad for Chelsea]

just seen a replay of the Jayawardene dismissals. Think it looks a pretty good decision for Mahela, sure he got a decent stride in, but all day the ball wasn't really bouncing over the stumps from that height. Certainly Swann thought it was a pretty good chance

Prasanna's dismissal was a really good catch by Prior. After keeping for 6 hours in that heat to move as well as he did (it was always going away from him and not sure it was carrying to slip) was great work. Best wicket-keeper batsman in tests by miles at the moment.

[Duty281]

England's day. Looked very much like a 400 pitch so to have them 238/6 at stumps and keeping the rate in check is very good.

Anderson bowled very well this morning, hope that injury he had towards the end isn't too serious. Likewise, Finn, Bresnan and Swann all bowled well and were, I thought, unlucky not to have further reward.

England should be looking to dismiss them for under 300 tomorrow and then attempt to garner a 100 run 1st innings lead. Please bat well England!

According to the BBC, Samaweera scored the 2 millionth run in Test Cricket today - always good to witness history!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/17597117

[Fists of Fury]

Afternoon gents.

Busy one at work so no opportunity to contribute, but have kept tabs on the score throughout the day.

Even day in my view (I'd say England's if I had more confidence in their batting). Kept things tight throughout, and James Anderson was once again superb. and unlucky to not have four to his name after Mahela's edge through slip on 79.

Mathews perhaps fortunate to still be there given way Jimmy toyed with him and had him playing and missing and edging deliveries short. It's just a shame we can't bowl him for more than four or five over spells in this heat.

Good day of Test cricket, and tomorrow morning should give us some indication of how this Test is going to pan out.

[Guest]

Afternoon gents.

Busy one at work so no opportunity to contribute, but have kept tabs on the score throughout the day.

Even day in my view (I'd say England's if I had more confidence in their batting). Kept things tight throughout, and James Anderson was once again superb. and unlucky to not have four to his name after Mahela's edge through slip on 79.

Mathews perhaps fortunate to still be there given way Jimmy toyed with him and had him playing and missing and edging deliveries short. It's just a shame we can't bowl him for more than four or five over spells in this heat.

Good day of Test cricket, and tomorrow morning should give us some indication of how this Test is going to pan out.

well he bowled a 7 over spell today.

[Fists of Fury]

Yes I know mr pedantic, but he was fresh then. You won't see him bowl 7 over spells midway through the day.

[Guest]

FOF,

Care to wager any hat munching bets?

[Fists of Fury]

Hat eating bets will be made at the close of play on day two

[Biltong]

did you at least try one fists?

[Fists of Fury]

Nope, the England run chase fell sufficiently short for me not to have to indulge.

[Biltong]

But i thought we agreed just because you showed so little faith in your team as punishment you should indulge.

[mystiroakey]

Hat eating bets will be made at the close of play on day two

its gonna happen one day- you will eat my mexican hat!!

[liverbnz]

238/6 after day 1 would be even steven in most cases, but with England's batting woes it's advantage Sri Lanka.

Looking forward to seeing Jimmy's bowling and Mahela's ton when I get to watch the highlights later.

[mystiroakey]

so the bbc headline is "england take control..."

lol

i dont think so considering we havnet been scoring more than 260 an innings!!

[Biltong]

You did once mate.

[mystiroakey]

Yep we did i suppose..Its my time to be pessimitic for me- I was full of joy last week even when faced with adversity. I suppose eveyone has there own personal thresehold!!

[Carrotdude]

It's definitely england's day in my book, just because our batsmen are likely to fail doesn't make it a less good day. We lost the toss on a fairly flat/placid surface and have them 238/6. Keep them under 300 and we're on top and we should be able to bat ourselves into a lead. We probably won't, but that doesn't take anything away from what the bowlers did today.

[mystiroakey]

our bowlers allways do the biz. It seems like for us to win we need them to do exeptionally well.

[msp83]

Back here after quite a while. The cricket this winter, from both my favorit sides, India and England have been rather disappointing. Moreover, there has been lot of other stuff to deal with.
Yet another day of fine bowling performance from England. With Both Jayawardenes getting out in the last hour or so, I think its been England's day.
But Angelo Mathews is still there, and both Randiv and Herath are capable of slogging a bit. So England should finish the Lankan innings off under 280, anything more, I think there is enough uneven bounce in the pitch to get the spinners into the frame quite early, and for a batting lineup that has struggled so badly against spin this winter, that would be a huge challenge.
I hope this is the test Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Strauss are going to come good, and England manage to put one across the Lankans.

[msp83]

What a superb innings from Mahela though!. A very elegant hundred indeed, coming under a lot of pressure yet again from the Sri Lankan captain.

[Mad for Chelsea]

hey msp, good to see you on here again. You're right, it was a superb innings (again) from Jayawardene, apart from the half-chance to Strauss off Anderson he didn't put a foot wrong, it was really quite beautiful

Generally on this wicket you'd be pretty pleased with having a side 240-odd for 6 after day 1, but of course we all know about England's recent batting woes. Hopefully this is the time they come good.

[msp83]

And fine performance from James Anderson, the cricinfo report of the day's play has some pretty interesting stats about him, he has really done so well consistently in overseas tests for some time, and for a brief time today, his bowling average slipped below 30.

[msp83]

Hello there MFC!.
I don't think this was a typical first day sub-continent wicket, flat and low. There has been enough to suggest spinners are going to have a significant say in things from tomorrow itself.

[Mad for Chelsea]

yep the pitch is only going to get worse and it started pretty much as a day 2 pitch. However, as it gets worse the bounce will get uneven and there's no doubt that England have the seamers to exploit those conditions. Therefore IF (big if) England can get a lead of 50+ I think their bowlers will really run through SL's batting in the second innings and England will win. However, if they bat as badly as they have been doing this winter and SL get a handy lead it will be very hard for England to claw their way back into it. One thing's for sure, it will all be a lot clearer at close of play tomorrow.

Thoroughly agree on Jimmy, he was superb with the new ball once again, but possibly just as good with his old ball spell just after tea, where I thought he was incredibly unlucky not to pick up a wicket (had Jayawardene edging between Prior and Strauss and beat Matthews more times than I could count). As I said in an earlier post, this winter has confirmed what many English fans have been saying for more than a year now, namely that James Anderson is now a superb bowler in all conditions.

[msp83]

Angelo is what stands between SL getting bowled out for a below par total, and they scoring a challenging one. He has already got 41, if he could somehow find enough support from the lower order and then deal with a formidable attack for an hour, hour and half tomorrow, Lanka should have a fighting total.
And that brings me to another related topic, along with Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal is one of the finest young players that Sri Lanka has produced over the last few years. He has shown that he can play in conditions that are tough, as was demonstrated in his debut test, as well as the CB series in Australia where his consistency stood out.
Agreed Prasanna J is a better wicket keeper, but I thought Chandimal did a decent job in his first test, and may be Lanka should have stuck with him, although that's a bit unfair to Prasanna, who's 2nd innings half-century was very important in Lanka winning the last match. But in the long run, may be Chandimal over Prasanna would make more sense.

[Fists of Fury]

Chandimal is a much better talent than Mathews, to my eye. Mathews struggled immensely today, though credit must go to him for coming through that sticky patch and accumulating a few runs.

As Geoffrey Boycott said earlier "I think I could bowl to Mathews. He couldn't hit the skin off a rice pudding".

In terms of ability it is a no contest, Chandimal every time. However, Mathews possesses the obdurate qualities required when there has been a cluster of early wickets, whereas Chandimal's natural attacking instincts may just get him out (as demonstrated in the first Test at Galle).

[Guest]

jeez fists, give matthews time..

he has been injured for a while, its no wonder he struggled.

chandimal's time will come, probably at the expense of either samaweera or prasanna.

[msp83]

Fists, I think there is more than looks suggests as far as Angelo is concerned. As you rightly said, if there is a scrap at hand, call in Angelo over Dinesh any day. Mathews has done consistently well over the last year or so, that is when he was fit and available that hasn't been very often!!. Moreover, when fit, Mathews could double up as a half-decent fast medium support that is good enough to take wickets at the ODI level, and contain at the test level. Chandimal on the other hand iis a superb bat, one in the line of a Mahela or a Sanga in the future. He could double up as a wicket keeper, and his keeping wasn't too shawddy in South Africa. With Chandimal batting at 6 and Angelo at 7, I think there will be greater solidity in that lineup, which is been struggling a bit at the top of late.

[Mad for Chelsea]

yeah I'm not surprised Matthews struggled a bit today either, after all he hasn't played any cricket for a couple of months so it was to be expected he'd take a while to find his groove again. Credit to him for battling it out.

Chandimal does look like a talent, but is he mentally strong enough to succeed in test cricket? We'll have to wait and see. Certainly he'll get his chance sooner rather than later. I admit I've never seen Chandimal keep, but I will say I'm a bit underwhelmed by Prasanna's keeping, though pleasantly surprised by his batting. I gathered that he was a really excellent keeper, but a bit dodgy with the bat. So far to me he's looked a pretty good batsman (certainly a competent n°7), but his keeping is good, no more (in fact I'd rate Prior a superior keeper at the moment).

[Mad for Chelsea]

Also, good point msp re Matthews's bowling. With SL seemingly (mostly) unwilling to bowl Randiv until the ball is about 30 overs old, they could really do with a third seamer option in there. Otherwise they're stuck with Dilshan geting through quite a few overs with the ball still pretty new, far from ideal IMO...

[msp83]

Mathews averages close to 40 after playing 22 tests, and almost 33 in 71 ODIs. Considering his 2nd string as a support bowler a fine fielder, and seemingly a good leader, I think Lanka is quite right to pick him in the XI, although it seems he won't be doing much bowling in the match. Howsoever unfair to Prasanna it is, unfortunately in present circumstances, the debate has to be on the lines of Prasanna vs Chandimal, and regardless of the former's greater skill levels with the gloves, as an allover package who is young, I'd go with Chandimal over him.

[Guest]

remeber matthews is also vice-captain of the side.

[Carrotdude]

Mathews is extremely lucky to still be in, he almost edged about 6 off Anderson earlier and had a few edges into his body that could easily have popped up to short leg. Can't say he looks a better player than Chandimal.

[Shelsey93]

Mathews averages close to 40 after playing 22 tests, and almost 33 in 71 ODIs. Considering his 2nd string as a support bowler a fine fielder, and seemingly a good leader, I think Lanka is quite right to pick him in the XI, although it seems he won't be doing much bowling in the match. Howsoever unfair to Prasanna it is, unfortunately in present circumstances, the debate has to be on the lines of Prasanna vs Chandimal, and regardless of the former's greater skill levels with the gloves, as an allover package who is young, I'd go with Chandimal over him.

Prasanna is also a very good batsman though. Shame that they can't get Chandimal in for this Test but sometimes a wait can be a good thing for a young player.

My assessment of Day 1 is just about honours even - the first session tomorrow will be critical with England looking to get the last 4 wickets for less than another 40 runs to say that they won the Sri Lanka 1st Innings.

[mystiroakey]

shelsey we will only know if we have won the first innings after our innings. Yes we may be able to get them out below par- however that is immaterial unless we can get past there total!

[msp83]

Think Angelo's record speaks for itself, keeping that aside, his is goin to be the big wicket tomorrow. He has been good in the past batting with the lower order, and Herath and randiv, and even Prasad are capable sloggers. So the morning session going to be very important for England, They should look to bat half of it at least!. and then build on to a decent lead batting through the day and a bit of the third day. For that to happen, they need Strauss to fire at the top, and Cook to regain the touch. Most importantly, KP has to take the responsibility of steering the innings.

[mystiroakey]

i cant see a much better top 3 in world cricket than ours- so how many times can they mess it up!!

[msp83]

The England top order did pretty well for some time now, but this winter in particular has been quite bad for them. Strauss and Cook have done well in the sub-continent in the past, and KP too, has got some decent scores over here. Trott has done alright so far in spin friendly conditions. Bell has had a terrible record in India, but he did OK in Sri Lanka in the past. But just like it happened with India over the last year, the England batting unit is going through a collective rough patch, a pretty bad one at that. Someone has to stand up here and counter the Lankans, and I'd place my bet on Pietersen and Strauss to turn things around for England.

[mystiroakey]

i am gonna go with cook to turn it around

[Liam]

pitch to me is similar to the last one, lifeless and not taking much spin either. It requires patient batting and concentration. If England can get two batsmen to score hundreds they'll win the test imo, their bowling attack is capable of it. 400 pitch I reckon.

[Corporalhumblebucket]

England stuck to their task well. Would be advantage England - if our batting line up was firing on more than one cylinder.....

[guildfordbat]

England and their supporters seem to have a lack of expectation at the moment. Whilst somewhat understandable, I'm not convinced it's helpful. As a team, we don't currently appear able to fully take advantage of a good opportunity or fight back adequately from a poor situation.

Most - players, management and fans - seem to regard day one as 'honours even' and pretty acceptable for England. I can follow that but remain mighty disappointed we didn't ram home our morning advantage. If we were 30-3, who in and out of our dressing room would be banking on us getting to 238-6?

[Mike Selig]

Guilford I have to disagree with you there: England picked up 3 early wickets with the ball swinging. Once the ball stopped swinging (which as usual in the subcontinent happened after 12-14 overs) the pitch offered nothing to England's seamers (the bounce was slow and low but consistent) and little to the spinners until about mid-afternoon when Swann at last got a couple to go off the straight. Sri Lanka at the time had 2 very accomplished batsmen at the wicket, at least in home conditions (where Jayawardene averages mid-60s and Samaweera 50+, indeed 114 on this ground). England had two options, continue to attack and risk letting Sri Lanka get away from them, or switch to a more defensive mode, and grind out wickets.

I feel they got the balance right. Certainly to suggest they let Sri Lanka off the hook is misleading. Such a criticism would have rightly been levelled during the first test (with dropped catches, and poor bowling allowing Jayawardene to score too quickly) but not today IMO. That the run rate never got above 3, and in fact decreased later in the day despite the fact that Jayawardene was on 100 not out, says it all for England's discipline with the ball and in the field. That Finn late in the day got a ball chest high to get P. Jayawardene out says a lot about his quality.

Honestly? I thought England were very good today. Everyone of them.

I do have to agree with MfC, this pitch will deteriorate quickly. England must get a lead, 150 will be a tough chase come days 3 and 4.

And I'm bemused by all the hype around Chandimal, who played one of the worst shots of anyone in the first test (and given some of the shots played that's saying something). Talented? Sure, but so was Mark Lathwell...

[guildfordbat]

Mike - sounds like I've been unfair on England in the field today. Danger of commenting more on a scorecard than from match viewing. Hold my hands up to that.

My point more though was that the mental state England now seem to be in, I find it hard to visualise them recovering from 30-3 to a decent score regardless of improving batting conditions. Whilst my view is immaterial, my concern is that the England batsmen lack self-belief and hold a similar view.

Hopefully, I'll be proved wrong or, better still, the 30-3 scenario won't arise.

[Biltong]

Matthews to 50, Sri Lanka being careful this morning and showing a lot of patience scoring at 2 runs per over 256/6 now

[eirebilly]

Morning all. Yep biltong, Sri Lanka are in no hurry and why should they be as a draw would see a series win for them. I like this from them to be honest.

[Biltong]

hi billy, yeah they do seem very focused and strong mentally when they play at home

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