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

Stapel

Stapel

International Regular
Since cricket news is not in any regular Dutch news site, nor cricket talk is part of Dutch office, school or pub life, this amazing win just came to my attention......

And I did check the score about half an hour before play finally commenced on day 5. I figured it was as dead as my great grandfather's horse. I even laughed about the silly discussions about when to declare..... It was DEAD. Anyone with a half decent knowledge of Test Cricket knew so.
And yet a result came out....

Irish_Opener said:
I just don't think they came to the final day mentally prepared to play a match. Just assumed it would be rained off and noone would bother.
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This!
The lack of professional sportmanship on Srik Lanka's side.

But that's not just it imho. England have shown a hunger for victories for quite some time now. I do think it is what makes England the hardest to beat Test side in the world. It's what the Aussies have shown so many times....
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
The thing that gets me is that if you want to beat England you can't just beat them. It doesn't seem possible to beat them by 3 wickets or 20 runs or whatever. In order to beat them you have to thrash them, which is a bloody difficult task.
 
Prince EWS

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Spark said:
The thing that gets me is that if you want to beat England you can't just beat them. It doesn't seem possible to beat them by 3 wickets or 20 runs or whatever. In order to beat them you have to thrash them, which is a bloody difficult task.
Click to expand...
Equally, it doesn't seem possible to lose to them by a small margin either. Whether England play, someone dominates. If the game is ever interesting on the last couple of days it's because one team is pushing for a win and the other is trying to hold on for a draw.
 
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GIMH

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
wpdavid said:
Yeah, but we were generally outplayed in those games, and only managed to save them by the opposition running out of time.
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First of the SA games was pretty close really. We just had a bit of a collapse after the KP/Trott joke runout.
 
Howe_zat

Howe_zat

Audio File
This talk gets me thinking about when the "current" England side came about. The Flower/Strauss Axis of Reasonableness is obviously a big part of it, but I tend to think it's when Flintoff retired.

His leaving caused a major shift in the balance of the side, from the 6-5 to 7-4 lineup that's been stuck with. And around the same time, Trott came in and Bell was recalled to fill the 6 batting spaces. Cutting down to 4 bowlers meant Swann was more of a key man too, just as he was nailing down his place.

I don't think I'm cherry picking, as our first series after that was one where England were admitedly second best, even though we drew it. Not saying his retirement "improved" the side either, just that it was probably the biggest factor in the current side taking shape.
 
S

SamSawnoff

U19 Vice-Captain
Howe_zat said:
This talk gets me thinking about when the "current" England side came about. The Flower/Strauss Axis of Reasonableness is obviously a big part of it, but I tend to think it's when Flintoff retired.

His leaving caused a major shift in the balance of the side, from the 6-5 to 7-4 lineup that's been stuck with. And around the same time, Trott came in and Bell was recalled to fill the 6 batting spaces. Cutting down to 4 bowlers meant Swann was more of a key man too, just as he was nailing down his place.

I don't think I'm cherry picking, as our first series after that was one where England were admitedly second best, even though we drew it. Not saying his retirement "improved" the side either, just that it was probably the biggest factor in the current side taking shape.
Click to expand...
I think it improved and liberated the side. It's very much more of a team now instead of Freddy hogging all the limelight for doing very little most of the time.
 
vcs

vcs

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Spark said:
The thing that gets me is that if you want to beat England you can't just beat them. It doesn't seem possible to beat them by 3 wickets or 20 runs or whatever. In order to beat them you have to thrash them, which is a bloody difficult task.
Click to expand...
Prince EWS said:
Equally, it doesn't seem possible to lose to them by a small margin either. Whether England play, someone dominates. If the game is ever interesting on the last couple of days it's because one team is pushing for a win and the other is trying to hold on for a draw.
Click to expand...
Spark said:
Well, I'm also counting the fact that the "close" matches have mostly ended in draws.
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So you're saying England are a boring team? :ph34r:
 
Howe_zat

Howe_zat

Audio File
Interesting that despite all this, England were doing the opposite in the World Cup, until their final match. People were saying they were precisely matching the standard of the opposition.
 
four_or_six

four_or_six

Cricketer Of The Year
Howe_zat said:
This talk gets me thinking about when the "current" England side came about. The Flower/Strauss Axis of Reasonableness is obviously a big part of it, but I tend to think it's when Flintoff retired.

His leaving caused a major shift in the balance of the side, from the 6-5 to 7-4 lineup that's been stuck with. And around the same time, Trott came in and Bell was recalled to fill the 6 batting spaces. Cutting down to 4 bowlers meant Swann was more of a key man too, just as he was nailing down his place.

I don't think I'm cherry picking, as our first series after that was one where England were admitedly second best, even though we drew it. Not saying his retirement "improved" the side either, just that it was probably the biggest factor in the current side taking shape.
Click to expand...
I think the ditching of Hoggard (and pretty much te end of Harmison) that tour in NZ, as well as bringing Swann in, had a lot to do with it. Those were all Peter Moores things, too.

Edit: Oh, and I agree with the Flintoff thing. The fit-unfit thing was really unhelpful to the side, unfortunately.
 
Agent Nationaux

Agent Nationaux

International Coach
I have been really impressed with Bell. He has really proved his worth in Test cricket and works very hard to get runs on the board, unlike other talented youngsters.
 
TT Boy

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Mahela Jayawardene - "Lots of people have commented on the fact that this is Sri Lanka's first Test since Muttiah Muralitharan retired, and it's true our bowlers don't have the same variety now that he's not in the side - which is the main reason why we chose five of them for this match. But we have to move on from Murali, because we're not going to get him back."


Mahela Jayawardene: Forget day five at Cardiff | Opinion | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

Obviously Mahela doesn't remember he played in 3 test matches (minus the retired Murali) against the West Indies last November and December.
 
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vcs

vcs

Request Your Custom Title Now!
It will be a travesty if Randiv doesn't play the next Test. Nearly won SL the third Test against India in the same series Murali hung up his boots.
 
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