***Official*** Sri Lanka in England and Ireland 2014

[nevermind]

Will England still have Test status come the 2015 Ashes?

 

[Contra]

T20 WC followed by a potential England series test win, must be nice to be a SL fan atm

 

[Pothas]

KP must be laughing his head off.

Would do it a bit more gleefully if he had scored a run in the couple of months.

 

[OverratedSanity]

England to resign from the Big 3 in embarrassment soon?

 

[Spark]

Didn't strike me at the time but geez England really did persist with the bouncers to Mathews, didn't they?

Could have asked us how that was going to work out, a certain MCG one-dayer comes to mind...

 

[BeeGee]

Hasn't been a great time for England sport recently.

Can't make it out of their group in the WC, whitewashed by NZ in the rugby and on the brink of losing a home test series against SL.

 

[Maximas]

oh man, how the **** am I gonna sleep after all that? What a ****ing scene that was

 

[Spark]

Don't get too gloaty, people. We still have English fans to console...

 

[OverratedSanity]

For some reason, I thought there was a third test. They're going to win the series omg wtf

 

[Spark]

For some reason, I thought there was a third test. They're going to win the series omg wtf

OS outed as actually fourteen

 

[Spark]

Boycott all but calling for Cook's head, apparently

 

[OverratedSanity]

OS outed as actually fourteen

Sri Lanka are winning a series in England. There is no reaction more appropriate than omg WTF.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Boycott all but calling for Cook's head, apparently

Must have read me on here.

 

[Spark]

Also, Mahela really tearing in at the presser:

David Coverdale @dpcoverdale
Jayawardene admits he has some sympathy for Cook but said: "It doesn't help when you have arguments with past cricketers."

Rory Dollard @thervd
Fiery stuff on England from Mahela Jayawardene 's post match presser. "under pressure they've shown they're not quite up to it"

Easy to say now, and also hard to argue with

 

[Goughy]

I think we know exactly what India will do to us.

Cook's goose is probably well and truly, er, cooked, but he's been appallingly let down by his senior players, yet again. Too much arrogance and too much living of occasional past glories. You really want someone like Allan Border to come in and scare the bejeesus out of the useless ****s, but I don't think English cricket produces anyone like that nowadays.

Well it is all rather strange. Senior players only represent half the side - 5 players over 24 yrs old with more than 10 caps. There has been a cull of snr players and possibly, and I don't know the truth, to protect this clique of senior players from being challenged.

I think it needs to be looked at more. Since the last of the Senior players debuted (Broad) and before the start of this series, (a period of 6-7 years) England picked 23 new players at Test level. Of those 23 players only Root and Ballance are in the current side. With the possible exception of Root, England went the entire career of Swann without producing a single player worth persevering with (based on the make up of the current team.)

TR Ambrose
DJ Pattinson
GP Swann
A Khan
TT Bresnan
G Onions
IJL Trott
MA Carberry
ST Finn
JC Tredwell
EJG Morgan
A Shahzad
SR Patel
JM Bairstow
JWA Taylor
NRD Compton
JE Root
SC Kerrigan
CR Woakes
BA Stokes
GS Ballance
SG Borthwick
WB Rankin

I get that the new management want to make their mark but the strangest thing is to pick a group of new players after the last group of new players have not been developed and now jettisoned. By bringing new players in you strengthen rather than challenge the internal clique within the team.

 

[Spark]

Would say Trott was worth persevering with.

 

[Watson33]

Ridiculous. Alastair Cook needs to take a break from the test team and get himself some FC runs with Essex. Prior, Anderson and Broad all need to look at themselves and some of them should be seriously considered for axing as well.

 

[Migara]

Finally Prasad showing what he's capable of. Sadly it took nearly six years to do it. I can still remember how he got Shewag and Gambhir who were in top form to hop around in his debut. That pace, ticking 145k regularly has deserted hom, but seems to have learn a thing. Still needs to get that release sorted out.

 

[YorksLanka]

I don't ****ing believe it!!!! Prasad of all ****s!

Happier at his selection now buddy?

 

[Viscount Tom]

Really need to work on our fielding in the mean time as well, I mean christ almighty it'd be a different story if we just held our catches, recall Collingwood.