***Official*** Sri Lanka in England

[JASON]

Have any of them not struck in their first over?

If any team wants to raise their bowling averages, strike rates henceforth they will know which Team should be invited for a home series .

 

[Smudge]

Henry Blofeld on form today.

Murali called for overstepping.

"A bowler of his pace, I expect he's barely ever been no-balled in his career"

Oh dear - I thought Blofeld had been put out to pasture a long time ago. Isn't there a wine glass he should be staring into?

 

[JASON]

Strauss flunks Running Between the Wickets 101. Cook dropped by Jayawardene off Murali soon afterwards.

If Sri Lanka had another bowler, we'd have a game here.

The number of times Jayawardene has dropped a catch off Murali would be a record , just as the number of catches he has taken off Murali , IMO.

Wonder Cricinfo or someone would be able to compile a statistic on that .

 

[JASON]

I said this before in the first Test, but why shouldn't Bandara be playing for Sri Lanka? He is obviously a bit more potent than Kulasekara/Maharoof and by the looks of it, Malinga. Are they afraid to only have two mediocre seamers, rather than three?
I say drop Kulasekara and play Bandara.

I would say you are getting a bit carried away there Jumbo, given Malinga has 54 wickets in 15 Tests so far !! I would agree about the other two, but Malinga may not be a Brett Lee or Ntini but he is certainly not mediocrity given he is still quite early in his career , ok .

 

[JASON]

Oh dear - I thought Blofeld had been put out to pasture a long time ago. Isn't there a wine glass he should be staring into?

Didn't you know that in the Old Country change is extremely slow or things hardly change !!

The TMS guys have been going on for donkeys years with very few newcomers and the same old voices !!

 

[JASON]

Well played England , and great bowling from England lead by Plunkett and Hoggard.

Pietersen looks set for another belligerent knock and SL deservedly are in for some real punishing !!

They do not deserve to save a second Test in a row and honestly I hope they get really thrashed by England today for some poor Captaincy decisions , bad batting and mediocre bowling . A bad all round performance IMO.

 

[luckyeddie]

Oh dear - I thought Blofeld had been put out to pasture a long time ago. Isn't there a wine glass he should be staring into?

I think it was at WESCADD2006 - This year's World's Evillest Super-Criminal Annual Dinner-Dance.

He was sitting with Gert Frobe discussing cricket, of all things. It was a little bit complicated, what with Blofeld having three seperate personas (Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas and Charles Grey), but they were all having a chuckle about the state of New Zealand cricket - oh, did I tell you that the organisation had even gone to the trouble of inviting some cricketers along? Anyway, I digress. Well, one of them was indeed staring into a wine glass - an empty one at that - when this 'fast' bowler said "Do you expect me to keep going up to the bar?"

Of course, Gert Frobe said

No, Mister Bond. I expect you to die!

and they all fell about. Blofeld started choking his chicken ... I mean choking on his chicken - when Shane asked this Oriental-looking guy with metal fingers if he was a doctor.

"Doctor? No!" replied Joseph Wiseman. Blofeld continued to stroke his ***** while... (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Edit:

Damn you, filter. The five asterisks is an innuendo-charged cat.

 

[dinu23]

Given that it had been raining in the Midlands for over a week and all and sundry predicting there was some juice in the wicket for the first few sessions , that certainly was a stupidest decision of all.

Mahela really puzzles me with his inability to even make a winning toss count !!

Either that or 2 successive scores of 500 plus on flat tracks made him too ****y and he made a rash decision to bat first buoyed on by an even dumber coach .

yeah, the dicision to bat was wierd, but I don't think our quicks could've done too much harm even if we did bowl first. if our idiots stayed at the crease for the first hour and half without doing anything silly we'd still be batting. But the pitch will slow down as the match goes on according to the BBC commentators. It won't be easy facing Murali in the fourth innings.

 

[marc71178]

Maybe not so far this match, but it almost certainly cost us a win in the last game.

Is he a great fielder who can stand in 5 different places then?

 

[wpdavid]

Will he still be around by then - his record isn't that good.

Presuming you mean Smith - good point. Actually, "isn't that good" is being generous, and it did occur to me that he'd be in trouble if NZ had shared the recent series.

 

[marc71178]

The TMS guys have been going on for donkeys years with very few newcomers and the same old voices !!

Far from it, the likes of Saunders and Mann have not been going on for donkey's years.

 

[wpdavid]

Good piece about Panesar by Andrew Miller in Cricinfo today. Couldn't agree more, tbh.

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/engvsl/content/current/story/248380.html

 

[luckyeddie]

Didn't you know that in the Old Country change is extremely slow or things hardly change !!

The TMS guys have been going on for donkeys years with very few newcomers and the same old voices !!

Bring back Jonners and Arlott.

They might pong a bit by now but they'd still make more sense than some of the commentators I've heard.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

I think it was at WESCADD2006 - This year's World's Evillest Super-Criminal Annual Dinner-Dance.

He was sitting with Gert Frobe discussing cricket, of all things. It was a little bit complicated, what with Blofeld having three seperate personas (Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas and Charles Grey), but they were all having a chuckle about the state of New Zealand cricket - oh, did I tell you that the organisation had even gone to the trouble of inviting some cricketers along? Anyway, I digress. Well, one of them was indeed staring into a wine glass - an empty one at that - when this 'fast' bowler said "Do you expect me to keep going up to the bar?"

Of course, Gert Frobe said and they all fell about. Blofeld started choking his chicken ... I mean choking on his chicken - when Shane asked this Oriental-looking guy with metal fingers if he was a doctor.

"Doctor? No!" replied Joseph Wiseman. Blofeld continued to stroke his ***** while... (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Edit:

Damn you, filter. The five asterisks is an innuendo-charged cat.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

Good piece about Panesar by Andrew Miller in Cricinfo today. Couldn't agree more, tbh.

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/engvsl/content/current/story/248380.html

It is a shame. Mind you Tuffers' was no great shakes in the field early doors and improved no end.

 

[a massive zebra]

Bowlers creating enough chances for 18 2nd innings wickets isn't good enough?

If merely creating chances were enough then Richard's first chance average theory would be the best thing since sliced bread. The fact remains that there were long periods in which Sri Lanka looked in no trouble whatsoever, yet in the England 'A' match Lewis got a wicket every 3 overs - that match proved that the Sri Lankans find him far more difficult than any of the bowlers playing in the Tests except, possibly, Hoggard.

Also, given his slower pace, one could justifiably conclude that those dropped catches would have been easier to take off Lewis than off one of the large monstrosity of faster bowler that played in the 1st Test, and England may well have won. The fielders certainly have had little trouble catching batsmen off Lewis in the A match or in county cricket this year in which he averages 7.

As I said a couple of weeks back, if Tate, Bedser, Hendrick or Fraser were bowling in the CC these days then the majority of people would say they were not quick enough to be test class. The speed gun has made people clueless.

 

[a massive zebra]

Catches win matches - and we spurned about half a dozen in the second innings alone at Lord's. The bowlers did their job well enough I reckon.

And they may well have been taken off Lewis as his slower pace gives the fielders more time to react.

 

[wpdavid]

So what's the weather like in Birmingham today?

 

[steds]

And they may well have been taken off Lewis as his slower pace gives the fielders more time to react.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

Cool man, Gower read out summat I e-mailed to Sky. I can die happy. Hoggard has the letters SSWTB on his arm guard so Bumble asked people to mail in what it stands for last night. So Solid With The Bat was mine, boring but hey, Gower read it. On telly.

Wow.

Yes, I am this pathetic.