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England vs Sri Lanka | 1st Test | Cardiff | 26-30 May 2011

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sl's seamers look lifeless...not penetrative...will have to rely on Mendis & Herath heavily looks like...
 
Good wicket at the end there, things could get interesting tomorrow.
 
Sri Lankan bowling looks pretty poor.

We want to be up to 400 by close today.
 
Damn, not a great start. Could still win this though, need to pile on some runs. Can't expect Sanga & Mahela to all fail again.
 
Losing a test match after scoring 400 runs in the first innings doesn't happen very often.
 
maharoof averages 60+ in tests??? he didnt seem such a shitty bowler today. bowled a little wider than expected. but his spell was better than lakmal's 1st spell.
 
Well played Lankans. Better than anyone had expected. This is your chance. Grab it.
 
Day belonged to Lanka especially with the wicket of Andrew Strauss.

Jimmy Anderson looked head and shoulders above the rest while Broad, Swann looked average. Tremlett did o.k but doesn't seem to have much variety which is need on good batting tracks.

England are always prone to a collapse so Lanka must fancy their chances but it will depend on how they play Mendis and Herath.

End of day 2 60-40 to Lanka.
 
I wonder if this drizzle will aid the Sri Lankan seamers, they need all the help they can get.
 
Game is a draw, near impossible for either team to lose on a pretty pancake-ish surface offering very little turn. I think SL will get back in to bat probably post-tea tomorow.
 
Jimmy is out of the match with a side strain.

Now England have to bat big so that their weakened attack is not exposed by Sanga & Co.
 
England are gonna lose now. I thought they would bowl the Lankas out quickly but it was quite a rusty performance.
 
They don't seem to be in the right frame of mind Robert. You are quite right though because of the weather conditions saying that they will lose is a big call but they have a lot of work to do to stay in the game, the loss of Jimmy will have hit them aswell.

Might be the anti-english Scottish part of me being hopeful though :p
 
Excellent discussion on the 'doosra' right now between Bumble, Nasser and Gower. Nasser said Murali cold easily bowl the 'doosra' without exceeding the 15 degrees limit IF he bowled it slow as he proved when wearing the arm brace for the Ch 4 piece but thinks when bowling it fast, he chucks it.
 
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Watching that aswell. I remember the C4 piece on Murali...maybe it was just hard to bowl fast with that thing on his arm?

Top stuff from Bumble who you could tell doesn't feel he chucked. Nasser a bit more reluctant to call it but still had genuine admiration for what Murali brought to the game.
 
DeadlyVenom said:
They don't seem to be in the right frame of mind Robert. You are quite right though because of the weather conditions saying that they will lose is a big call but they have a lot of work to do to stay in the game, the loss of Jimmy will have hit them aswell.

Might be the anti-english Scottish part of me being hopeful though :p
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Agh, awa' o' that wi' ye!

We're half way through the match now and it's raining.

Looking to Lords, I think they should bring in a fifth bowler - probably Onions or Shehzad, given that we struggled to bowl hem out in this one and that their seam attack doesn't look enough to trouble our batters.
 
Loss of Anderson actually reduces the chances of England winning considerably as regardless of how much they get, they need to bowl out Sri Lanka in a day, in order to win the match.

The chances of Sri Lanka winning won't be affected much by this because they'll still need to take those wickets. If they can't bowl out England twice, no amount of batting (an innings which they will have to declare if they're in a strong position) will help them out.
 
Weather update

The grey clouds are clearing away, and sky is much brighter... More importantly, the rain seems to have dissapeared, weather is slowly improving.
 
Have a strong feeling some wickets will be going down this afternoon.
 
I predict trott to go out cheaply and Cook to score a century :D
 
Maharoof - an average of 20 with bat and 62 with ball. What gives?
 
Piling on the runs these two, lankans need a break through
 
congrats cook..you're on the way to become one of the greatest if you continue like this
 
Cook's fifth test hundred in his last ten innings.
 
Match heading towards a draw, England will probably bat until tea tommrow
 
man SL's bowling looks listless...hopefully our batsmen don't make them look world class when we take on SL in the fall

but SL will have our nemesis Herath so you never know! :)))
 
cook and trott-the two run machines for england are pain-in-the-neck for opposition bowlers yet again.
 
it's amazing how Pakistan was on the verge of leveling the test series 2-2 last summer with our pathetic batting line up...testament to how great our bowling was against such a strong batting line up and than we know what happened next at Lords :facepalm:
 
gsivak said:
SL bowling sucks.....looks even more toothless than India without Zaheer!
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true, in fact maybe without Harbajan too.

Quite frankly, I'm a little surprised. Even their spinners don't look test quality.

This is what I don't get about Sri Lanka. Their spinners and even fast bowlers are excellent in limited overs. Such a strong bowling attack. But in tests none of them cut it. Makes you think that perhaps they are just groomed for limited overs, no test development at all. They bowl as if they're restricting runs. No real wicket taking.

Mendis unsurprisingly looks the best of the lot, as he actually looked like a genuine wicket taker in limited overs too. Excellent strike rate in ODIs. Can really fool batsmen with his variations. More worked out now, and hasn't adapted as well, but still if he keeps changing his variations, he could cut it at test level. Don't have too much hope for the rest.
 
ads101 said:
Their spinners and even fast bowlers are excellent in limited overs. Such a strong bowling attack. But in tests none of them cut it. Makes you think that perhaps they are just groomed for limited overs, no test development at all. They bowl as if they're restricting runs. No real wicket taking.
Click to expand...

True. They have Malinga in the ODIs and he makes a massive difference. Given that SL play such limited amount of tests I am not surprised to find them struggling after loosing a class player like Murali. Murali and Anil by the time they retired may not have looked as good as they were in their peak, but their loss has obviously affected the overall performances of their team. Shows the kind of impact such players have on the other junior bowlers.
 
Ok so Sri Lanka might have a worse bowling attack than the West Indies, New Zealand, Pakistan and even Bangladesh.

Maybe still better than Aus though :p
 
Cook and Trott were imperious, SL's bowling looks very weak. Malinga was missed.
 
SL's bowling was beyond mediocre. It's a flat pitch, but they had no venom at all.

I expect England to bat them right out of this match, tomorrow.
 
Probably not enough time left unless SL collapse.

So far a good first up performance from them.
 
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