**Official** Sri Lanka in England / Scotland - 2011

[Spark]

4th and 5th, you mean

 

[Furball]

England have better depth and variety in their attack, but SA's attack is the more accomplished (and lethal) and proven for longer and in a wider variety of conditions IMO. TBF, most of that is down to Steyn being the best bowler in the world comfortably right now.

Depends what you mean by attack. If you're talking about new ball bowlers, I might give it to South Africa (although Morkel has yet to prove himself outside of South Africa). If we're talking about the entire attack, then sorry, there's no way in hell where a side who have Paul Harris as a spinner and where Jacques Kallis is comfortably the 3rd best seamer is better than England's.

 

[Furball]

4th and 5th, you mean

Shut up

 

[Manee]

I desperately want to know how Sri Lanka expect to succeed with their bowling line up. I don't know what the depth of talent is like in Sri Lanka, but could you imagine England opening the bowling with a guy who has 28 FC wickets in 15 FC matches (Perera) and then a change bowler who has 113 wickets in 59 FC matches (Maharoof). These people are averaging pretty much one wicket per FC innings they bowl in - and this is at the low level of Sri Lankan domestic cricket - how are they expected to consistently pry the top quality England batsmen out?

I get the impression, though this is not confirmed, that spinners do most of the work at domestic level, but surely there is the odd bowler who spearheads his team's attack who would be more effective than Maharoof or Perera. I understand they both can bat, but their bowling records are jokes - they cannot be expected to succeed more than once in a blue moon!

 

[Furball]

Anderson hasn't done much away from home except for the last ashes. Averages around 39 or something. I don't understand how people can say there isn't a big gap between him and Steyn.

I love how you're dismissing Anderson's efforts in Australia so easily. You have to goback to 1992 to find a visiting quick who did as well as Anderson did in Australia. 24 wickets @ 26 over 5 Tests is not to be sneezed at.

I hate doing this because it's cherry picking stats, but Anderson only became a regular in the side when Strauss became captain. Before then be was in and out of the side, which won't help his away record. Since becoming a regular he's had 3 away tours - one in the West Indies on pitches that were a disgrace, 1 in South Africa and 1 in Australia.

 

[Manee]

Yes. Jimmy is a quality swing bowler. He is reaching Zaheer status where he is fully harnessing his natural ability to swing the ball. He knows when to drop the speed, how to execute plans and he will go from strength to strength in the next few years, injuries pending, imo. On another note, his load up looked different in the Test match, perhaps that contributed to the side strain?

 

[Furball]

His dismissal of Jayawardene was godly.

Sky showed a HawkEye of that over, bowls 4 outswingers then the wicket ball follows the same trajectory before moving into Jayawardene off the seam. Mahela did pretty ****ing well to edge it.

 

[Spark]

Nah DWTA, edging was about all he could do. That was a beautiful bit of swing bowling there.

 

[Manee]

His dismissal of Jayawardene was godly.

Sky showed a HawkEye of that over, bowls 4 outswingers then the wicket ball follows the same trajectory before moving into Jayawardene off the seam. Mahela did pretty ****ing well to edge it.

Yes. It was unbelievably good. Jayawardene is a proper high quality batsman and Anderson worked him over with genius swing. The outswingers were well placed and the inswinger just comes with no change in action, which takes proper skill and he got the ball to move seriously. The discipline to not use the inswinger every ball to try to knock over the batsman with brute force is admirable enough, but the whole plan was just perfect. I always think Anderson can be, at his best, a throwback to the 1990s where there were more bowlers of such quality from all countries (compare Vaas and Murali to Lakmal and Mendis as the most obvious example) who could outskill top quality batsman like that.

 

[Shri]

Vaas to make a comeback at this rate.

 

[Uppercut]

Depends what you mean by attack. If you're talking about new ball bowlers, I might give it to South Africa (although Morkel has yet to prove himself outside of South Africa). If we're talking about the entire attack, then sorry, there's no way in hell where a side who have Paul Harris as a spinner and where Jacques Kallis is comfortably the 3rd best seamer is better than England's.

It's a tough comparison. Harris will probably be replaced by Tahir, which is really only a complete unknown coming in for a 5/10 player, but you'd be seriously tempting fate to describe a player like Tahir as a weak link. You can sniff at Jacques Kallis being the third best seamer but at least he means they actually get to have a fourth best seamer. As we saw on Friday, England have to basically temporarily give up an end if there's still a decent partnership going after 60 overs.

There's so much uncertainty around the England attack too. No one can really be sure exactly how good Broad and Finn will turn out, or whether Tremlett can put a decent run of games together when he never managed to before. For most of the Ashes they were a class above any other attack in world cricket, but you really need to assume that they're going to be capable of keeping that up to say they're better than South Africa. It's really just a case of "let's wait and see".

As new ball partnerships go, you need to dust off the bias if you think Anderson-anyone is comparable to Steyn-Morkel. Steyn is better than Anderson and it's not close, and Morkel is better than all other England seamers and it's not close.

 

[Howe_zat]

Fair stuff from Uppers.

 

[Spark]

It's a tough comparison. Harris will probably be replaced by Tahir, which is really only a complete unknown coming in for a 5/10 player, but you'd be seriously tempting fate to describe a player like Tahir as a weak link. You can sniff at Jacques Kallis being the third best seamer but at least he means they actually get to have a fourth best seamer. As we saw on Friday, England have to basically temporarily give up an end if there's still a decent partnership going after 60 overs.

There's so much uncertainty around the England attack too. No one can really be sure exactly how good Broad and Finn will turn out, or whether Tremlett can put a decent run of games together when he never managed to before. For most of the Ashes they were a class above any other attack in world cricket, but you really need to assume that they're going to be capable of keeping that up to say they're better than South Africa. It's really just a case of "let's wait and see".

As new ball partnerships go, you need to dust off the bias if you think Anderson-anyone is comparable to Steyn-Morkel. Steyn is better than Anderson and it's not close, and Morkel is better than all other England seamers and it's not close.

Agreed with the last bit, but it's worth noting that you don't necessarily have to assume Broad, Finn, Tremlett are the only names in the mix. That's one where England have a big advantage over SA IMO.

 

[Jacknife]

It's a tough comparison. Harris will probably be replaced by Tahir, which is really only a complete unknown coming in for a 5/10 player, but you'd be seriously tempting fate to describe a player like Tahir as a weak link. You can sniff at Jacques Kallis being the third best seamer but at least he means they actually get to have a fourth best seamer. As we saw on Friday, England have to basically temporarily give up an end if there's still a decent partnership going after 60 overs.

There's so much uncertainty around the England attack too. No one can really be sure exactly how good Broad and Finn will turn out, or whether Tremlett can put a decent run of games together when he never managed to before. For most of the Ashes they were a class above any other attack in world cricket, but you really need to assume that they're going to be capable of keeping that up to say they're better than South Africa. It's really just a case of "let's wait and see".

As new ball partnerships go, you need to dust off the bias if you think Anderson-anyone is comparable to Steyn-Morkel. Steyn is better than Anderson and it's not close, and Morkel is better than all other England seamers and it's not close.

Most England matches , just like it was in the SL innings, the 5th bowler will come on just before the new ball is to be taken. In the 1st innings, it was Trott that came on, in the 73rd over and wouldn't have bowled more except for Jimmy's injury. When Colly was doing the job, Sky have said a few times, he averaged 5 overs per game, so it's hardly giving up a end in the 60th over if there's a partnership.

 

[Uppercut]

Agreed with the last bit, but it's worth noting that you don't necessarily have to assume Broad, Finn, Tremlett are the only names in the mix. That's one where England have a big advantage over SA IMO.

Yeah, that's definitely true. Onions especially, I rate him really highly. But then it's hard to gauge the strength of the South African backup given that no one pays attention to their domestic structure. People were making the same comments about their lack of depth when Friedel de Wet came in against England a couple of years ago but he actually bowled really well.

 

[Teja.]

It's a tough comparison. Harris will probably be replaced by Tahir, which is really only a complete unknown coming in for a 5/10 player, but you'd be seriously tempting fate to describe a player like Tahir as a weak link. You can sniff at Jacques Kallis being the third best seamer but at least he means they actually get to have a fourth best seamer. As we saw on Friday, England have to basically temporarily give up an end if there's still a decent partnership going after 60 overs.

There's so much uncertainty around the England attack too. No one can really be sure exactly how good Broad and Finn will turn out, or whether Tremlett can put a decent run of games together when he never managed to before. For most of the Ashes they were a class above any other attack in world cricket, but you really need to assume that they're going to be capable of keeping that up to say they're better than South Africa. It's really just a case of "let's wait and see".

As new ball partnerships go, you need to dust off the bias if you think Anderson-anyone is comparable to Steyn-Morkel. Steyn is better than Anderson and it's not close, and Morkel is better than all other England seamers and it's not close.

Gun post. Fully agreed.

We need to see more of the current English bowling line-up to make an accurate assessment. The Ashes was an awesome team bowling achievement and is not to be sniffed at but apart from Anderson and Swann(The latter is good IMO but slightly overrated), There are a considerable number of 'Will this bowler sustain that level of performance over a longer period?' question marks all over.

 

[mono]

I desperately want to know how Sri Lanka expect to succeed with their bowling line up. I don't know what the depth of talent is like in Sri Lanka, but could you imagine England opening the bowling with a guy who has 28 FC wickets in 15 FC matches (Perera) and then a change bowler who has 113 wickets in 59 FC matches (Maharoof). These people are averaging pretty much one wicket per FC innings they bowl in - and this is at the low level of Sri Lankan domestic cricket - how are they expected to consistently pry the top quality England batsmen out?

I get the impression, though this is not confirmed, that spinners do most of the work at domestic level, but surely there is the odd bowler who spearheads his team's attack who would be more effective than Maharoof or Perera. I understand they both can bat, but their bowling records are jokes - they cannot be expected to succeed more than once in a blue moon!

pace has never been sri lanka's strong suit. To compound matters we lost malinga. Then we lost dilhara Fernando & nuwan pradeep to injury right before the first test. Although even those guys being there i was pretty confident of our guys not being able to take 20 wickts

 

[Manee]

pace has never been sri lanka's strong suit. To compound matters we lost malinga. Then we lost dilhara Fernando & nuwan pradeep to injury right before the first test. Although even those guys being there i was pretty confident of our guys not being able to take 20 wickts

Pradeep too only has 60 FC wickets in 57 innings which is poor. These bowlers just are not taking enough wickets. It is quite severe. I'm unsure whether the issue is the pitches or whether the bowlers just aren't good enough, perhaps a bit of both. Is Dammika Prasad injured, he seems the best prospect, to me, outside of Fernando/Malinga un-retiring.

 

[Himannv]

It's a tough comparison. Harris will probably be replaced by Tahir, which is really only a complete unknown coming in for a 5/10 player, but you'd be seriously tempting fate to describe a player like Tahir as a weak link. You can sniff at Jacques Kallis being the third best seamer but at least he means they actually get to have a fourth best seamer. As we saw on Friday, England have to basically temporarily give up an end if there's still a decent partnership going after 60 overs.

There's so much uncertainty around the England attack too. No one can really be sure exactly how good Broad and Finn will turn out, or whether Tremlett can put a decent run of games together when he never managed to before. For most of the Ashes they were a class above any other attack in world cricket, but you really need to assume that they're going to be capable of keeping that up to say they're better than South Africa. It's really just a case of "let's wait and see".

As new ball partnerships go, you need to dust off the bias if you think Anderson-anyone is comparable to Steyn-Morkel. Steyn is better than Anderson and it's not close, and Morkel is better than all other England seamers and it's not close.

Top post this although I'm dont exactly agree with its overall point. I'd say England have a marginally better attack now compared to South Africa largely because of Swann.

 

[vcs]

It's a tough comparison. Harris will probably be replaced by Tahir, which is really only a complete unknown coming in for a 5/10 player, but you'd be seriously tempting fate to describe a player like Tahir as a weak link. You can sniff at Jacques Kallis being the third best seamer but at least he means they actually get to have a fourth best seamer. As we saw on Friday, England have to basically temporarily give up an end if there's still a decent partnership going after 60 overs.

There's so much uncertainty around the England attack too. No one can really be sure exactly how good Broad and Finn will turn out, or whether Tremlett can put a decent run of games together when he never managed to before. For most of the Ashes they were a class above any other attack in world cricket, but you really need to assume that they're going to be capable of keeping that up to say they're better than South Africa. It's really just a case of "let's wait and see".

As new ball partnerships go, you need to dust off the bias if you think Anderson-anyone is comparable to Steyn-Morkel. Steyn is better than Anderson and it's not close, and Morkel is better than all other England seamers and it's not close.

Gun post. Fully agreed.

We need to see more of the current English bowling line-up to make an accurate assessment. The Ashes was an awesome team bowling achievement and is not to be sniffed at but apart from Anderson and Swann(The latter is good IMO but slightly overrated), There are a considerable number of 'Will this bowler sustain that level of performance over a longer period?' question marks all over.

Pretty much these.