SL-Eng Day Three

As Sanath Jayasuriya (25*) and Kumar Sangakkara (1*) took the bad light at the end of Day Three of the 2nd Test in Kandy, it has to be pondered where this Test match is heading. The weather forecast for the next two days looking ominously like rain and the Sri Lankans holding a 127-run lead and 9 wickets in hand yet they declined to continue play. It seemed to be a defensive decision from the batting side when they could have been on the offensive and hammering home an advantage they ground out over the last 60 overs of the England innings.

If it was to be a good day for England, then the lower order of Collingwood, Flintoff and Read needed to fire with Graham Thorpe and help England upto their target. It took approximately 60 minutes to change the complexion of the game into England struggling not to give Sri Lanka a large first innings lead.

Collingwood (28) fell after five overs and the addition of 9 extra runs to his overnight score as Vaas nipped one off the seam and found the edge to Sangakkara who took a nice, low catch to his right. Andrew Flintoff came out to the crease like a man on a mission and swiftly despatched Murali down the ground off the back foot and pummelled Chaminda Vaas for a six and a four past the bowler. But innings like these always provide chances and this was no different; a chance went short of mid-on from Vaas but the next time wasn't so lucky for Lancastrian all-rounder as he came gallivanting down to pitch to Murali and was bowled off his pads for 16.

Chris Read managed 5 balls before notching up his 2nd duck of the series and England had gone from 177/4 to 205/7. Flintoff and Read have accumulated 31 runs between them with the six times they've batted this series and after this attempt, England were left trailing by 177 runs with the tail exposed.

England's tail came to rescue in Galle and it came to the rescue again today, by scratching around for runs here and there alongside the immovable Graham Thorpe. He batted for just over 4 hours for his 57, using all his powers of defence against the Sri Lankan bowling attack. He was ably supported by Gareth Batty as these two added 51 precious runs in 28.4 overs. Dogged defence was what was required and dogged defence was what was achieved. When Thorpe fell to Murilitharan's top spinner the score had reached 256/8 and it looked like England would have a big 1st innings deficit to contend with.

However, Ashley Giles joined Batty and the innings continued in the same vein, solid defence and punish the bad balls. 23 runs later, after the Sri Lankan skipper Hashan Tillakaratne had had to hand the new ball to his pace bowlers, the wicket of Giles fell to a combination of Vaas and his 2nd slip Jayawardene. All that was left to do for Batty was try to score a few last ditch runs. He fell attempting to do so, again the bowler was Vaas but the fielder was Tillakaratne Dilshan out at mid-wicket. The last 3 England wickets had scrounged 89 runs and left England on 294 all out and a first innings deficit of 88 runs.

Ashley Giles then followed up his contribution with the bat with the wicket of Marvin Atapattu (8) before the Sri Lankans made their decision to leave the field of play when they had reached 39/1 and their lead at 127.

A fairly pedestrian day (170 runs from 79 overs) which produced interesting cricket without being entertaining and has left Sri Lanka most definitely in charge but hoping the weather can hold off until proceedings are concluded.


Sri Lanka 382 (Dilshan 63, Fernando 51*, Giles 5/116)
and 39/1 (Jayasuriya 25*; Giles 1/8)

England 294 (Thorpe 57, Vaughan 52; Muralitharan 4/60, Vaas 4/77)

Sri Lanka lead by 127 runs.


Posted by Peter