*Official* Sri Lanka Tour of New Zealand 2018/19

[Maximas]

Gunathilaka is one of the few openers in SL who play pace well. In SL when spinners open bowling, FC stats on openers don't mean much.

He played the saffer quicks pretty well in August, but his technique had some deficiencies that well all predicted would make him very vulnerable overseas, Southee and Boult on grassy NZ wickets is a seriously tough circumstance to open the batting, and if anyone was going to be able to do it Kaushal Silva was probably the man, but he blew his chance at home.

SL did better than I expected. Decent recovery from 3/**** all. Great to see Karunaratne in the runs. Got lucky a couple of times but still a solid knock. Feel bad for Kusal. Matthews obviously did great too. Short theory worked yet again for NZ but it was pretty awesome to see Dickwella counter it. What was the pitch like? How'd the spinners go?

The pitch didn't seam much, had some bounce and actually took a little bit of turn, I don't expect Dilruwan to get much from it however

 

[Flem274*]

good catch

282 is something to bowl at here, and you can catch up on the runs in the third innings at the basin.

 

[BeeGee]

Superb from Southee. Superb from Dickwella. Now for the batting.

 

[Bahnz]

Good stuff from Southee. Him bailing Boult out for a change. He's got a good opportunity to get that bowling average back under 30 bY the end of this summer, hope he takes it.

 

[Woodster]

Rajitha reminds me a little of England’s former quick bowler Saj Mahmood, a little less pace, hopefully for SL he will have a bit more control.

 

[straw man]

Enjoyable morning so far. Liked seeing Raval play a few shots and thought the commentators gave a fair assessment of the struggles of this opening pair - i.e. it's good to stick with them, Raval faces a lot of balls and needs that first hundred, Latham needs to keep his concentration up.

Sri Lanka have been decent apart from some wayward stuff from Rajitha, though he's settled down a bit now.

 

[Flem274*]

angelo still sri lankas best seamer i see

not (just) an insult either. love watching him bowl for some reason. accurate + movement

 

[Moss]

Who's the woman commentator on at the moment? Thought it might be Debbie Hockley, but they just mentioned she's watching from the embankment.

 

[Woodster]

He doesn’t appear very threatening but is giving absolutely nothing away. No pace to work with and no loose offerings, patience required for the NZ openers.

 

[Chewie]

Who's the woman commentator on at the moment? Thought it might be Debbie Hockley, but they just mentioned she's watching from the embankment.

Lesley murdoch

 

[Grasshopper]

First time I've seen Kumara bowl. He looks quite lively.

 

[straw man]

Lahiru 'Neil Wagner' Kumara

 

[hendrix]

Kumara looks decent...why hasn't he bowled before now?

 

[Flem274*]

that was a bit silly

 

[Moss]

Raval looked excellent till then, but jeez he won't get many better opportunities to push on. Kumara breathing life into the attack for sure.

 

[straw man]

Oh Jeet

Really looked excellent and then Lathamed it.

 

[Grasshopper]

*facepalm*

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Nooooo Jeet. I'd just said to a mate this was his big chance for a ton. I think I say that every innings right before he gets out.

 

[Hicheal Michael]

David Gower-esque.

 

[Gnske]

It's like this is a continuation of the last Sri Lankan series in NZ with all this filthy pulling and hooking going awry.

Anyway **** off d***heads it's time for KANE.