**Official** Sri Lanka in England and Ireland 2016

[grecian]

Still seemed like more of a threat than Mo did.

To you and your rather biased view which seems to be what this is all down too, you think he's more threatening with the ball, and think he's a better Test bat. There's no real figures to back this stuff up. Just to your eye he looks better, umm okay.

 

[Grumpy]

To you and your rather biased view which seems to be what this is all down too, you think he's more threatening with the ball, and think he's a better Test bat. There's no real figures to back this stuff up. Just to your eye he looks better, umm okay.

It's my opinion. I don't see how Mo will go on to have a successful Test career. I don't think Rashid will either, but I do believe he has a higher ceiling, and so deserves a run as long as Mo has had.

Take the immediate series coming up for example. Do you think Mo, given his poor technique, will survive against Amir/Wahab/Yasir (Pak butter finger syndrome withstanding)? And I don't see how he will be a factor with the ball given what happend just a few months ago in more spin friendly conditions.

 

[91Jmay]

Rashid has basically the mirror technique of Moeen as a right hander. Find this chat about his technique being better than Mo's odd.

 

[Compton]

Right, I was happy to consider Rashid vs Mo as spin bowlers, but claiming Rashid is a better all-rounder is just ridiculous.

Mo's technique is poor, but he's on a different level to Rashid as an all-rounder.

 

[Pratters]

Sri Lanka crumbling like Budgey expected. Gah. Give me some competitive cricket. Anderson was bowling terrific though.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Sri Lanka you spuds... didn't wait months for test cricket to watch this tripe.

 

[Bijed]

Peoples' thoughts on the talk of Woakes replacing Finn when Stokes returns? Unless Finn goes into Ashes 2013 mode, I'd personally prefer to keep him and Woakes (assuming he keeps bowling well) and force Stokes to go and discover some consistency before he gets back in.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

For the last test (presuming we finish off this one and win the series) I would have it as a straight fight for one place between Finn and Woakes with Ball definitely playing. In a dead rubber we may as well give the new guy a chance, will get rid of any nerves etc... in case he has to play the opener against Pakistan at least. Finn looks out of rhythm at present but you wonder if a game at home might get him going, no preference over who we play really. They may decide to rest Jimmy or Broad anyway but they will want to play for the cheap wickets on offer.

 

[Furball]

This is worse than the West Indies in Australia.

 

[Stapel]

This Test will be over, before the IPL final starts. What a big meeehhhh return for Test Cricket this is.......

 

[Howe_zat]

This is worse than the West Indies in Australia.

Not even close to true, the Windies didn't have good first days in both tests.

 

[Howe_zat]

Think we will see Cook bat again this morning.

1. You bowl better after a break, and a 4th day pitch might be much easier to bowl on, so the modern way is to only enforce when you have to (eg because of rain in the first test)
2. Cook is on 9995 test runs
3. 4th day ticket sales

 

[Howe_zat]

Mickey Holding:

'they have nothing to lose. They cannot perform worse with the bat than they have done.' Somebody didn't watch lat year's Ashes

 

[morgieb]

Not even close to true, the Windies didn't have good first days in both tests.

Be that as it may, their batting ended up OK as the series went on. Helped by conditions admittedly but Sri Lanka's batting has been as awful as West Indies bowling was. It's probably even worse than Australia or India because at least they were capable of scoring runs in the right circumstances.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

So Bairstow and Broad have a chance of a Michelle.

 

[morgieb]

Pradeep looks deadset village out there. Like someone from CW could do a similar job.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Pradeep looks deadset village out there. Like someone from CW could do a similar job.

Its awesome. He's probably the only truly tailendery tailender left. Utterly incompetent and terrified of the ball.

 

[Howe_zat]

So Bairstow and Broad have a chance of a Michelle.

13 catches in the series so far for Bairstow, the record for a 3 match series is 21.

 

[social]

This Test will be over, before the IPL final starts. What a big meeehhhh return for Test Cricket this is.......

What did anyone expect?

Rebuilding sub-continent team playing in England in May was only ever going to end up one way

 

[Howe_zat]

Comms harsh on Compton there, skiers like that aren't easy and he took it.

397 to make England bat again. Seems slim.