England v West Indies ratings

England were not troubled in their 2-0 victory over the West Indies, but they were some way short of masterful. They were a bit sloppy, especially in the last match, and they conceded almost a third again as many runs in this series (1549) as they did in the three Tests they lost in the UAE (1178). The good news for England that in they were even worse at the start of last summer, conceding 1606 runs against Sri Lanka, with no effects in the second series.

The West Indies looked like an improving side. Against Australia they never gave up, despite the regular horror-sessions. Here they always looked on the verge of collapsing with the bat, but actually did so only once. They let things get away occasionally with the ball, but did well at regrouping in between sessions and fighting back after intervals. Overall, they were outclassed by England, but can go home with their heads held high. (Or at least they could if they did not still have to play a bunch of pointless ODIs.)

My individual marks (out of ten):

England
Andrew Strauss* – 9
Came into the first Test at Lord’s with ‘questions’ about his place in the side and responded with a majestic first innings century. Made just one in a tricky spell in before stumps in the second innings, but then came back with a bigger hundred and at a vital time for the team. He finished at the top of the England run-scorer list and second in average. His captaincy was poor by his standards, with the players often looking unmotivated and the field settings characteristically negative.

Alastair Cook – 6
A deceptively decent series by the vice-captain. Failed in the first innings in each match, only scoring 54 runs in the three innings. Stepped up when required in the second innings, however. Contributed with an excellent and all but match-winning 79 in the second innings of the first Test and saw England home with an unbeaten 43 in the second Test.

Jonathan Trott – 3
Got himself in a few times, but only managed a solitary fifty from the first Test. Did enough to still average over thirty in the series, but it was not really enough from the number three and almost half of his runs came in relatively easy situations. A disappointing series for such a good player, his Test average is now only a little bit above fifty.

Kevin Pietersen – 7
Made more headlines off the pitch than on it, but still had a good series. Only had one failure with the bat, in the second innings of the first Test, which he followed up with consecutive half-centuries. Put Shillingford and Narine to the sword in the second and third Tests. Had a century in his sights twice, but got out slightly loosely on both occasions.

Ian Bell – 9
In four innings this series, he hit three fifties. Two of them were unbeaten and one of those was a match-winning knock in the first Test. The only time he failed to go past sixty was when he fell for 22 in the second Test. Apart from that, he looked majestic and can count himself unlucky not to have scored a century. He was stranded with the tail in the first Test and was denied by the rain in the third.

Jonny Bairstow – 0 1
Looked talented, but never passed twenty in three innings. Undone by Roach in the first two Tests, then by Best in the third. Deserves another chance against South Africa, but looks unlikely to get one. Addendum: I have accepted the suggestion given to me that he deserves one point for the brilliant run out he effected at Lord’s.

Matt Prior† – 6
Excellent as always behind the stumps, but only got two innings with the bat. Did not contribute significantly in either of them, but has the excuse of twice coming to the wicket when needing to score relatively quick runs.

Tim Bresnan – 7
A series of two halves for Bresnan. Was arguably fortunate to have even been selected for the first two Tests after looking poor in the last Test in Sri Lanka and very poor at Lord’s. Kept up that form for the first part of the second Test, despite getting some tail-end wickets on the second morning. Then showed why he was selected with a some vital runs in England’s innings and then blew away the West Indies. Finished with twelve wickets in the series, second most for either side.

Stuart Broad – 9
Was perhaps slightly flattered by his eleven wickets in the first Test, but it is very hard for someone to luck into such a feat. For comparison, no West Indian bowler took more than ten wickets in the entire series. Highest wicket taker in the series with 14 and also contributed some useful runs in the second Test.

Graeme Swann – 3
Found life difficult on pitches that were not taking appreciable turn and was only a real threat in the second innings of the first Test. Scored thirty in the first innings of that Test as well.

James Anderson – 8
Showed his value most highly in the third Test when he was rested and England were rudderless. His nine wickets in the first two Tests were insufficient reward for the skill with which he bowled, though he did not get the same swing he got last summer.

Graham Onions – 7
Only got one innings of one Test, but looked very good therein. Had the best bowling figures of the innings with 4-88 and looked much like the Onions of old. Unlikely to be picked against South Africa, but will have put himself in the selectors minds.

Steven Finn – 5
Was not picked until the third Test, despite widespread suggestion that he ought to be. Bowled well in the one innings in which he got the chance, but was a bit wayward on the fourth morning. Looks very good, but perhaps still not quite the finished product and may have slipped behind Onions in the pecking order. Made an amusing 0* as nightwatchman.

West Indies
Darren Sammy* – 7
Continues to get the most out of his side, some feat given the massive internal problems of the West Indies. Showed his batting skill in scoring a maiden hundred in the second Test, but badly threw his wicket away in the other two. His bowling was only that of a useful fourth seamer and nothing more. Should definitely be happy with his efforts, however.

Adrian Barath – 4
Not a great series for the West Indian opener, but not a dreadful won. Stuck around well in both innings of the first Test, but never managed to pass fifty and went cheaply in both innings of the second. Comfortably the best of the top three.

Keiran Powell – 2
Three single figure scores in five innings and a top score of only 33 make this a series to forget. His only saving grace was that he did manage to drag his innings out and wear the shine off the ball to protect his colleagues.

Kirk Edwards – 0
Eight runs total in four innings and seven of them came in the first innings of the second Test. For comparison, Fidel Edwards even managed to score twelve. Dropped for the third Test, needs to do a lot of work to come back.

Darren Bravo – 3
Another top order batsman to struggle, he made it into the twenties three times, but not once into the thirties. All the more disappointing after being considered the second best batsman in the order coming into the series. Comprehensively outshone by batsman down the order from him, though was unlucky to be run out by his partner in the first innings of the series.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul – 8
Another good series in England for the West Indian wall. Missed the third Test due to injury, but passed fifty (and came close to a hundred) in both innings at Lord’s, plus a 46 in the first innings at Trent Bridge. His only failure was when playing an uncharacteristically wild hook in what would be his last innings of the series.

Marlon Samuels – 10
Could almost do no wrong. Out to a loose drive in the first innings at Lord’s, he then seemed to feed off Chanderpaul’s patience (with whom he frequently batted) and after that his lowest score in the rest of the series was 76. Did not look overly threatening with the ball, but did enough to pick up five wickets and was a decent second spin option.

Denesh Ramdin† – 4
Scored a century remembered mostly for his puerile celebration in the last Test, but was very underwhelming in the first two. Should be aware that a ton in a rain-ruined dead rubber against a second choice attack is not enough to compensate for three single figure scores in the previous four innings. Was below average with the gloves, but not horrifically so.

Kemar Roach – 8
Some ferocious new ball bowling saw him top the list of West Indian wicket takers despite picking up an injury and missing the third Test. His top moment was causing some worry in the gloom at the start of the England run chase in the first Test, but was class throughout.

Fidel Edwards – 1
His mark matches the number of wickets he took in the first Test, before being dropped. Most notable for the ridiculous design cut into his hair.

Shannon Gabriel – 5
Unfortunately injured after the first Test, but looked good when he played. Someone who should boost the Windies when he returns.

Ravi Rampaul – 7
Came in for the second Test and looked quite good. Got the ball to swing and nip about off the seam. Got some important top order wickets in the first innings, especially that of KP when England looked set for a huge total and dismissed Cook twice in the series.

Shane Shillingford – 1
Desperately unlucky to have only played in one Test. Left out due to a preference for an all-seam attack at Lord’s and due to a preference for hype in the third. Did not look terribly good on an admittedly flat pitch at Trent Bridge, however as KP and Strauss scored at will off him.

Assad Fudadin – 2
Hard to say a lot about a 110 ball 28, apart from it being twenty more runs that Kirk Edwards had scored at that position in the entire series before then. No worse than any other member of the West Indian top four.

Tino Best – 7
Came in for just the last Test, but what a Test he had! Made the highest ever score by a number eleven with an aggressive but technically sound innings. Deserved a century, but suffered a rush of blood on 95. Also picked up some wickets in England’s abbreviated response.

Sunil Narine – 0
Victim of a flat pitch and two of the best players of spin in Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen, but his 0-70 still did not come close to living up to the massive hype that surrounded his belated arrival. His ‘mystery’ could not even fool the number eleven, Steven Finn.

Edgbaston, day one three, WI 280-8

The good news was that we finally had some cricket today. The bad news is that the cricket itself made a result much less likely. It was a day that would not have been out of place in either of the first two matches. England were the better side and on top at stumps, but were also sloppy throughout and should have been on top by more. The West Indies were outplayed and whilst they did give some of their wickets away, they did not just capitulate.

It was already known that England were resting Anderson, but they sprung a slight surprise by resting Broad and thus letting Finn, Onions and Bresnan all bowl. As far as bowling went, this worked okay. All three took wickets and all looked good. Anderson, however, was missed in the slips, where Bell put down two of the three chances that went to him. To be fair to Bell, he is not usually a slip fielder, but it did raise the question of why it was Bell in the slips and not Baristow, who keeps wicket for Yorkshire.

On the whole, all three seamers bowled well. There was the surprise of Bresnan taking the new ball instead of Finn, who is more suited to it, but this was rectified by the time the second new ball was available. There was also the predictable five overs of Trott and Swann was largely ineffective on what is effectively a first day pitch. But the West Indies should have been bowled out and probably bowled out well before stumps. England seemed to lack a cutting edge, which has really been a bit of a problem all series. There were a total of three drops in the slips and twice an edge went through the vacant third slip. The carelessness in the field was annoying, but the negative field setting was worse. This is a three day Test and one which it is almost impossible for England to lose and yet there were only two slips in for the second new ball. It was absolutely pointless caution. Whilst this would not usually be surprising from Strauss, in this case he had at least given Finn a full slip cordon in the morning with the original ball, so why not with the second?

Restoring that ‘bite’ is something which England must do before the series against South Africa starts. If one looks back on the home series against India; there were a few chances that went down, but only a few and almost none that played a big part. I’m sure England did drop some chances in the Ashes before that, but none are at all memorable and I don’t think there were more than a couple. Even when we were losing in the UAE we held our chances more often than not. Putting down three in a day (and a few more earlier in the series) represents a troubling aberration. Although it would be disappointing, hopefully this is no more than a case of the players not being ‘up’ for an early season series against a weak team. We did see much the same against Sri Lanka last year. Whatever the problem is, it needs to be solved before the Series against South Africa.

The combination of sloppiness and negativity cost England the opportunity to put themselves into a great position. The West Indies batted decently, but still threw a few wickets away (Sammy, particularly, appeared to forget or disregard the batting lesson from the first two Tests) and were overmatched in any case. The fact that England could not take advantage is disappointing from the perspective of the match itself. The best chance to get a result was to only play three innings and the best chance for that to happen was for England to bowl the West Indies out for under 200 and get a big lead by the end of day four. Now it looks like England will not have time to do so and will have to look to skittle the West Indies on the last day and quickly chase it. It is much less likely and whilst it would be a bit harsh on England for anyone to expect them to win, they did have a chance and have made it much harder on themselves.

England win by five wickets

I got the margin of victory off by one wicket. And that wicket fell with two runs to win. I’m kind of annoyed about that, but otherwise my thought last night that it would be tricky for England at first but ultimately comfortable was fairly accurate. Cook and Bell progressed serenely in a partnership of 132 for the fifth wicket that all but won England the match.

It was actually a pretty good, one might almost say ‘standard’, Test. Not particularly close, but not a blowout and a couple of sessions of negative bowling by England aside there was always something to watch. I don’t think either side will be too happy with the Test, however. England will be happy to have won, but did not ever seem to really play as well as they should and have a lot on which to work before the Trent Bridge Test on Friday. The West Indies overperformed, but if one had not expected them to be hammered one would probably not say they played particularly well, though it is a mark of how much they overperformed that one would also not say they played particularly poorly and certainly played as well as any average side would be expected to. They will also be disappointed to have lost.

As mentioned on a previous day, England’s bowling in this Test was at best average and at worst poor. Even with the standard caveats of good batting by Chanderpaul; a flat pitch and not a lot of swing, one would have to say that England need to improve. Jimmy was certainly off his best, despite bowling better than his figures suggested. Broad bowled well, but was rather flattered by his figures. Bresnan was simply poor and Swann did not get a chance to feature heavily, but managed to get the prize wicket of Chanderpaul as well as the important one of Bravo in the second innings. I think they will improve, however. One of the problems was that, as far as I know, none of them had more than one or two county matches in which to prepare. I think Jimmy especially needs more than the one match he got to really find his rhythm for the summer. The same, to a lesser extent, applies to Broad as well and although he was good in this Test I think he will be better in the next one. I think, however, that Bresnan needs some more time with Yorkshire. He has not looked quite the same since he returned from injury and I think he just needs more time in the middle with bat and ball. We have enough bowling depth to play Finn and/or Onions for the rest of this series. In hindsight (and this is not meant as a criticism because it was not as clear before the match) Onions should have played in this Test where the conditions would have been very well suited to him.

The West Indies need to work on their running between the wickets. A lot. They lost wickets in both innings to horrible mix-ups and could (arguably should) have had the Chanderpaul-Samuels partnership broken by one in the second innings. As important as that is, they also need to improve their batting in general. As mentioned above their performance was not in any way poor, but that does not mean that it does not need improvement. Especially in the first innings they still lost wickets to injudicious shots and the dismissal of Sammy in the second is almost cause enough to strip him of the captaincy. They did not collapse the way they could have (and did at home) and now their task is to build on that and improve. In the field they need to work on sustaining pressure. I never thought they were going to win today, but they did not put up much of a fight after dismissing KP. Even before then the field setting was odd (a problem we saw in Australia too) and there were always runs on offer. Despite losing two early wickets and being 57-4 (though one of those was a nightwatchman), England scored 121 runs in the morning session. It was a rate one would normally associate with well set batsman going effortlessly, not fighting through a difficult first hour. There was some poor bowling, only Roach was going really well, but a lot of very poor captaincy from Sammy. The field placing was terrible and the decision to bring the part time spinner on to bowl to Ian Bell was baffling.

Looking ahead to Trent Bridge, I think both teams ought to make changes. England should bring in one of Finn or Onions for Bresnan. Right now I would lean toward Finn, but that is without seeing the conditions. If it is a relatively quick wicket then I would certainly prefer Finn’s pace and bounce, though if it is slow then Onions’ ability to bowl at the stumps and move the ball in the air might be preferable. That should be the only change; whilst Bairstow only made 16, he did so comfortably and deserves another go. The West Indies must bring in a proper spinner this time. Samuels might buy a couple of wickets, but we already saw Bell take him apart. Shillingford will presumably replace one of the quicks and I suspect it will be Gabriel, as promising as the debutant looked. It is worth noting, however, that Roach appeared to have a slight ankle problem. There is also an outside chance that Edwards will be dropped after being wayward once again. It would be a gamble to ask Gabriel to lead the attack, however. The bowler who probably should be replaced is Sammy, but as the captain that will not happen.

The ball will almost certainly swing more at Trent Bridge than it did at Lord’s and it will be interesting to see if the West Indies can continue their fight. I may have mentioned it already, but in 2007 the West Indies batted very well at Lord’s before rain intervened. They then went to Headingley and lost by an innings and 283 runs, though there were some extenuating circumstances. I think the next Test will be more of a challenge for them than this one was; England will have likely improved and the conditions will be tougher. Weather permitting, England can expect to win. Whether the West Indies can make another good Test of it will tell us a lot about the nature of their improvement.

England v West Indies preview

The West Indies come to England fresh from a disappointing 0-2 defeat at home to Australia. They only performed passably well even at the best of times during that series and were frequently dire. Despite England’s recent woes in the subcontinent and similar regions, they are a side who have lost only two Tests at home since the start of 2009 and are still number one in the world. It is fair to say that if the Windies are going to come close in this series, they will have to perform far, far better than they did at home.

History, or at least recent history, is against them. They have not won an overseas Test somewhere other than Bangladesh since the Boxing Day Test in South Africa in 2007. The last time they won a Test in England was at Edgbaston in 2000; since then they have lost 12 and only managed to draw two. Their coach, Ottis Gibson, said that his hope for the Lord’s Test was to take it into a fifth day this time. This was in reference to their defeat inside three days at the home of cricket in 2009. That hope may be a bit optimistic. They have selected a squad which on paper appears to be slightly weaker than the one which lost to Australia and they have started the tour by losing to the Lions by ten wickets. In truth, they did well to make it that close. The Lions, boasting England’s third choice bowling attack, bowled the West Indies out for 147 in the first innings and went on to post a lead of 196. The Windies did come back a bit in the second innings, however.

Their performance against the Lions shows the fact that their batting almost begins and ends with Shivnarine Chanderpaul. He is a true great, but we have already seen that one great cannot carry a poor side. The rest of them have talent, and we saw some of that in the first innings of the first Test against Australia, but they are also very prone to give their wickets away (as we saw in the rest of that series). The West Indies will be facing arguably the best pace attack in the world in very friendly conditions. It is a far cry from the flat pitches and weak attacks on the subcontinent, or even the turning ones pitches from the recent series in the Caribbean. They occasionally performed well in those places, but even then were prone to collapses. Even if they were to cut out all the mistakes that have plagued them recently I think they will find the going very difficult and they are up against an attack that thrives on coaxing batsmen into errors. Last year India failed to pass 300 in four Tests; the Windies have only three and I would not be at all surprised to see the same result.

They will clearly need something from their bowlers. Unfortunately, their best performers at home were probably the spinners and despite England’s struggles against turn over the winter, they are unlikely to be more than a supplement in England. A lot will rest on their pace attack. Again there is some talent, but of what would appear to be their first choice attack (Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy) only Roach has a bowling average under 30. They may cause some damage in friendly conditions, but these are home conditions for England’s batsmen and they put a pair of similar attacks to the sword last summer. Given that their batsmen already liable to give them a mountain to climb, I think it will be a tough ask for the West Indies bowlers.

England are strong favourites, but do go in under a bit of pressure after the disappointing winter. There is a strong sense that nothing less than three emphatic wins will do. As mentioned above, however, they have lost only twice at home in twenty Tests under Strauss and Flower. (They’ve won 14 of those Tests.) Most of the side have scored runs in the Championship already (no easy feat) with Cook the only exception and he has not had a lot of opportunities. As already mentioned, Bairstow looks like he will be batting at six. After the struggles of the winter, the batsmen do seem to have found some form and should present a formidable opposition to the Windies. The biggest hope will be that Strauss can get some big runs and ease the (insane) questions about his place in the side. He has a pair of decent scores in the Championship already, including an unbeaten 43 in Middlesex’s last match, and I do not see any reason why he could not push on from there.

England will probably be playing either Finn or Bresnan as a third seamer, though Onions is also in the squad. Whoever is picked will have an excellent opportunity to nail down the spot for the series against South Africa, but that’s assuming whoever it is (I’m guessing Finn) gets much of a bowl. Jimmy Anderson finished the series in Sri Lanka looking like the best bowler in the world and Stuart Broad had been in excellent form in the UAE before picking up an injury. They have both, especially Jimmy, shown themselves to be formidable weapons in all conditions and in May in England against a side prone to collapse I expect them to take bags of wickets. Swann will also be useful, he always is, but I doubt he will have an opportunity to do much more than chip in with a few wickets.

I can’t see the West Indies winning a Test. I said before the Australia series that I thought they had a chance to steal one from that series, but they could not and England are a much different proposition. I’ve already mentioned that at Lord’s in 2009 they lost before stumps on the third day. At Durham in 2007 the entire first day and quite a bit of the second day was lost to rain, but England still won comfortably. England are now a much better side than they were in either 2007 or 2009, whilst the Windies are arguably worse. Unless it rains non-stop for three days during one of the Tests I can see no other result than a 3-0 whitewash for England.

LV=CC week five roundup

There was more rain in the LV=CC this week, but not as bad as it was last week and we did have more results than draws this time. (Though this was partly due to a contrived match at Lord’s.

Nottinghamshire beat Lancashire by 185 runs
Warwickshire beat Durham by nine wickets
Middlesex beat Worcestershire by 132 runs
Derbyshire drew with Gloucestershire
Glamorgan drew with Essex
Northamptonshire beat Hampshire by 117 runs
Yorkshire beat Leicestershire by an innings and 22 runs

Of note is that now all of Durham, Lancashire, Worcestershire and Glamorgan have still not won a match this season. Yorkshire’s win at Scarborough was their first of the Championship. Meantime, Warwicks and Notts are each yet to lose a match despite some close finishes for the former and the latter having just a single batting point this season. It keeps Warwickshire on top of the D1 table by four points over Notts, having played one fewer match. Derbys have also done enough in their draw to stay at the summit of D2.

As mentioned above, one of the most notable match of the round was probably at Lord’s where Worcestershire declared before the last day on 45-2 and Middlesex forfeited their second innings. It set up a chase of 283 on the last day, but Worcs did not get near it. It was still an example of good attacking thinking, however. The points allocation system is (rightly, I think) set up to reward victories highly and almost discount draws. Worcs correctly assessed that it was worth going for a win and we got an exciting finish out of a match that looked dead.

This was also the week in which all of the England players were cleared to appear for their counties. Ian Bell rather dramatically returned to form for Warwickshire, scoring 120 after coming in with the Bears 15-3. He this time outshone his England colleague Trott, who could only make two. As Warwickshire do not play next week, Bell will appear for the Lions to get some more time in the middle. Jimmy Anderson bruised his hand and come down with a stomach ailment, but still managed to take 5-82 in Notts’ second innings. In the other dressing room for that match, Swann and Broad took 3-26 & 2-30 and 0-60 & 3-67 respectively. Swann and Anderson each bowled the other in the match as well. Andrew Strauss scored a pretty good 49 in tricky conditions at Lord’s. It was not chanceless, but it was fairly quick and pretty fluent for the conditions. It should ease the silly media speculation about him, however. Steven Finn did not play a large role on the final day, but did take 2-30. For Essex, Alastair Cook’s return to the middle did not last long, as he made only nine and five. Jonny Bairstow made his case to bat at six against the Windies with 182 in Yorkshire’s innings victory, whilst Tim Bresnan took 1-37 and 1-57.

Many of the best performances were not from the England players, or even those on the fringes of the side, however. Andre Adams completely turned the match at Old Trafford with his first innings 7-32 (a career best) and Warwickshire’s Keith Barker took 5-33 in the first innings and 5-37 in the second to ensure that Durham were only briefly in the match. Strauss got the most publicity in Middlesex’s first innings, but it was Joe Denly who put them in a winning position with his unbeaten 134 whilst Alan Richardson tried in vain to restrict the hosts with his 5-89. Derbyshire captain Wayne Madsen hit a century and Tony Palladino took 5-47 as Gloucestershire were forced to follow-on at Derby, but Kane Williamson stepped up for the visitors with 128 (of 409-4) as they secured the draw. Cook failed for Essex, but Alviro Petersen, his South African counterpart, did not and scored 145 at Cardiff. Huw Waters responded for the hosts with 5-47 to restrict Essex in the second innings as the match was drawn. David Willey put in a possibly match-winning effort with the ball for Northants, taking 5-39 in the final innings as Hants could not get close to their target. Finally, Leicestershire had a pair of excellent performances in vain at Scarborough. Wayne White took 5-90 in the first innings and Matthew Boyce scored 122 as Leicestershire tried to make Yorkshire bat again.

Colombo, day four

England are well placed to win tomorrow and they mostly have one man for whom to thank for that: Graeme Swann. He struck twice in the penultimate over to not only break a stubborn partnership between Samaraweera and Jayawardene, but also sending the nightwatchman back to the hutch two balls later. England might have fancied their chances of winning today, but will probably be happy with having Sri Lanka effectively 33-6 at stumps. Mahela Jayawardene is still in though and we already know just how troublesome he can make batting with the tail.

They day may have looked a bit dull on paper, 214-6, but in practice it was anything but. Prasad started the day by looking less like a nightwatchman and more like a replacement opener. He had a few lives, but comfortably outlasted his partner. The first wicket belatedly brought Dishonourable Dilshan to the crease and the England fieldsmen wasted no time in letting them know exactly what they thought of his antics yesterday. Dilshan responded by suggesting to the umpire that Cook had tread on the protected part of the wicket. (He had actually extended himself to stride over it.) It was all quite feisty for a while; the only thing it missed was KP bowling to Dilshan, which I would have loved to see. It did settle down, at least until Dilshan was dismissed. He got a good ball from Jimmy which he edged into his pads and from there into the hands of Strauss at slip. He immediately reviewed and the only evidence either way was a small red mark appearing on the bat as the ball went by. Given the technology, it was not going to get any clearer than that: with nothing to suggest that the umpire was wrong and a bit to suggest that he was right, Dilshan stayed out. He then threw a bit of a tantrum, but that was to be expected. The Sri Lankans both in the booth and in the dressing room proceeded to then display a complete ignorance of how the DRS actually worked. Michael Atherton had to explain it in the booth to an unhappy Sanath Jayasuria and the Sri Lankan management later expressed confusion about why Dilshan did not get the benefit of the doubt.

It is remarkable just how much gamesmanship Sri Lanka have managed to squeeze into the Test as they try to cling on to the series. It really is quite ugly. They have been repeatedly crossing the wicket when celebrating dismissals and when taking drinks, Samaraweera stood his ground in the first innings, the entire team went into a strop when they ran out of referrals and then there is Dilshan. His antics bowling to KP, appealing excessively (for which he was fined), hiding behind a nightwatchman and then the entire scenario of his dismissal are disgraceful and hopefully he parts with a bit more than just the ten per cent of his match fee he has already lost. I know most of the world wants to see England lose and slip off the number one place, but I think that those who do should also ask themselves if they really want to encourage this sort of behaviour from Sri Lanka.

Whilst all that was going on, it must be pointed out that Sangakkara has now edged the ball four times in this series and has walked straight off every single time. Most of them were pretty obvious, yes, but given the way the rest of his team were behaving I think he deserves praise for playing the game properly. It is too bad that he is no longer the captain.

At the end of the day, England are probably only a couple of early wickets away from levelling the series. Both Jayawardenes and Angelo Mathews are not yet out and can score runs, but if England can pick up where they left off (and they still have a new-ish ball) they will be well set. Sri Lanka have no choice but to score slowly on this pitch to try to keep their last wickets in hand, and as a consequence it will probably not be until past tea interval that the match is completely safe. If they can last almost that long though, there could be a scenario in which England have to chase about 160 in forty overs or so. It would be interesting to see how they would go about that, but it is probably confined to the realm of fantasy. Sri Lanka have batsmen left who could do that, but most teams would still rather be in England’s position.

Colombo, day two

This was the day for which we have waited all winter. England dominated it pretty much from the word go and in another situation would probably be well on top. The conditions required scoring slower than usual, which England duly did. It means that they are not as well positioned as they might have been if they were at home, but are as well placed as they could ask to be here.

England started the day still needing four wickets and went after them patiently. It meant that I started to hear some hand-wringing as half an hour elapsed with no wickets, but it always looked like a case where one wold bring four and that is exactly what happened. The batsmen eventually tried to break the shackles and Strauss had the men set perfectly for it. His clever captaincy was mostly ignored, or course. Swann ended up with four wickets having bowled very well to get them. Jimmy ended up stuck on just the three he got yesterday morning, though he deserved rather more. It’s something that I need to look up, but it seems that Jimmy fairly often takes a few top-order wickets but only finishes with three or four as someone else cleans up the tail. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as the wickets are taken.

The highlight of the day was that England finally remembered how to bat. It won’t make the highlight reel because this was old-fashioned batting. Strauss and Cook kept out the good ones and tried to rotate the strike off worse ones. The run rate was only two and a bit per over, but that was what England needed. The runs did come, Strauss and Cook looked progressively more and more comfortable and Sri Lanka looked like they did not quite no what to do. The entire afternoon session passed without a wicket falling. It was precisely what England needed to do and even when Strauss departed in the last hour for a very well played 61, Trott picked up right where he left off. England finished on 154-1, trailing by only 121.

There is still a lot to do, of course. England are supremely well placed, but another collapse could still undo all that. We saw that happen in the first innings at Abu Dhabi, though the big partnership there was for the second wicket. If Cook and Trott can go the way they did there, after a big first wicket stand this time, then KP might not even come in until the scores are almost level. A collapse then might be too late for Sri Lanka, so they know that they have to get an early wicket tomorrow. It sounds surprising after all that has happened this winter, but right now the only one of the top five not to have scored some runs is KP. Even if he and Patel fail, England have enough lower order batting (Prior, Bresnan, Swann) to get a big lead if they’re only a few behind when Bell comes in. England have to go for big runs. It is very optimistic, but until there is a collapse England have to try to only bat once. They cannot try to up the rate, however, keep going as they are and accumulate. The plan will be to grind out the runs and declare around 500 before tea on the fourth day. Even if there is a bit of a collapse, if they stay sensible 400 is still possible. Or England could lose three wickets before lunch tomorrow and have to rely on Swann to get the lead up to fifty. That’s still possible too.

Sri Lanka win by 75 runs

The month and scenery changed, but this Test was a familiar tale for England: A frustrating and avoidable defeat. This time was all the more galling (no pun intended) for coming against a demonstrably weaker side. When England collapsed against Pakistan they had the excuse that they were up against a very good bowling unit, not so in Galle. Herath took what may have been the luckiest Test 12-fer in history (though the last one was taken by Jason Krejza, so maybe not) as the batsmen repeatedly gifted him their wickets. Of the seven recognised batsmen (ie, Strauss – Patel), nine of the 14 wickets to fall in both innings were needless. Even granting Patel leniency on debut and accepting the inevitability of the occasional batsman error, one would still call six of the 12 wickets inexcusable. Of those, two were to misplayed sweeps shots and three were to needless charges down the wicket (and remember, I am not including Broad through Monty in that). It is fair to say that without those errors, England would have won. Herath is not a 12-fer bowler without a lot of help, and in this match he picked up three wickets from stupid shots, three tail-end wickets and the debutant twice. The other four were at least reasonable, but four wickets for a subcontinent spinner is nothing special. But that’s about right, because it wasn’t a special performance. He was not only outbowled bowled by Swann, but even Randiv was getting more bounce and turn. It’s fair to say that Herath was the third best spinner in the match, but England made him look like Shane Bloody Warne. It’s frustrating, annoying and the same thing they did in the UAE. They should have learnt and they did not.

The bowlers were once again very good, but they did not cover themselves in glory the way they did in the UAE. Jimmy Anderson’s five wicket haul in the first innings was excellent, starting as it did by reducing Sri Lanka to 11-2 and removing the very dangerous Sangakkara first ball. He also produced a pair of fantastic deliveries to finish the innings on the second day, though by then it was later than England would have liked. Graeme Swann certainly deserved more for his efforts. Six wickets in the second innings, including Jayawardene, Sangakkara and Samaraweera (cumulative average: 159.12) for only 55 between them. He had Sri Lanka 127-8 in the second innings and gave England a chance to win. He also batted in a cap in both innings. It’s a small thing, but it does not happen nearly often enough and it is very, very cool when it does. Between all that, I think it would have been fair to have given Swann MotM.

The bowling unit as a whole, however, was not quite incisive enough and Strauss had a bit of a shocker with the captaincy. The biggest problem for England was probably the selection, we played two seamers and three spinners. The notion was presumably that the seamers would not be effective on the slow surface, but Anderson and Broad put the lie to that in the first innings. Neither Monty nor Patel looked incisive, meantime, and all of their wickets were those of tail-enders. This lack of firepower cost England badly as the Sri Lankan tail added valuable, and ultimately match winning, runs in both innings. The second innings was the more frustrating. This time, Sri Lanka did not have an established batsman to guide the tail and yet the last two wickets put on 87 runs. England only lost by 75, so it is no exaggeration to say that those cost England the match. Strauss did not captain well in that time. To be fair to him, he was handicapped by only having two wicket taking options: Patel and Panesar looked unlikely to bowl anyone out and Broad was half fit. Strauss could not keep Swann and Jimmy on for the entire session and Sri Lanka profited. At the same time, however, he did not attack enough. England needed to wickets to have a great chance of winning, but he put men back and allowed easy singles. The notion was to get the ‘rabbit’ on strike, but this seldom seems to work and it did not come close to doing so here. This is not the first time England have changed tactics to tail-enders and I find it baffling every time. The original tactics had reduced the Sri Lanka to 127-8 and got some of the best batsmen in the world out cheaply. Why alter that to a number ten? In the first innings, Jimmy bowled Welegedara with an unplayable offcutter. The batsman had no chance. Why this was not the plan in the second innings is beyond me.

England could have, and should have, won this match. There is still some hope, but they must cut out the errors before the next Test. Having watched this side at their best we know this is possible, but one would think it would have already happened. I have already written about how England can improve their player selection, but the biggest problem is shot selection. As long as they are playing rash shots, like sweeps, they will struggle.

Galle, day two

There are some positives to take from today. Most notably, two players who were out of form recently had a very good day. Ian Bell showed why he is still one of our best batsmen and was actually the only one to look at all like he knew what he was doing. I was quite glad to see this (tempered by the horror of what was going on around him, of course) as I have said before that Bell is a good player who should be backed to score runs and he did just that. He was finally undone only by a very good ball from Herath (the only one he bowled). Still, it was a steady innings and in addition to his own runs (of which he scored more today than in all three Tests in the UAE) he gave Broad and Swann a chance to get some much needed runs at the other end with more expansive shots.

The other somewhat out of form player was Graeme Swann. There were some questions asked about his place in the side coming into the match and even more after Panesar finished the first innings with better figures. I will add, I think these questions were foolish: Panesar was in better form, but Swann is still the better bowler and he showed that clearly today. Broad gave him the chance to bowl at two left handers (as Swann likes to do) when he clean bowled Dilshan and Swann took the opportunity well. He not only got Thirimanne with a lovely ball, but he also got the vital wickets of Jayawardene and Sangakkara. Those were the batsmen most likely to defy England enough to get Sri Lanka to an unbeatable position. Sri Lanka may still do that, of course, but it won’t be any of the obvious candidates to see them there and it vastly improves England’s chances of making an interesting finish to this match. Swann also got Samaraweera stumped late in the day. Samaraweera is not as renown as his middle order colleagues, but he still averages better than fifty and to get him before stumps for only 36 (half of Sri Lanka’s runs at that point) was a huge boost. Swann ended the day with four top/middle order wickets for 28 runs I have suddenly stopped hearing anything about Monty being the new number one spinner.

Those were the high points of the day, but mostly it was one to forget. Sri Lanka edged their way (literally) to 318 all out with Jimmy getting a well deserved five-fer but it was far more than we should have conceded. After which came the great batting collapse of the style I thought we had left in the UAE. This time it was even less excusable. There is really nothing in the pitch, it’s only the second day, and Herath is not a special bowler. Bell aside, England played him like he was Shane Warne, however. Although there was some nice attacking intent, the batsmen seemed to not know how much turn he was getting (very little) and resorted to pre-meditated shots. These worked about as well as they did in the UAE. Bell showed how to play the spinners: he moved his feet and happily hit Herath back down the ground, or stayed back and cut behind square. He was the only one. After a decent start, Strauss and Trott spectacularly threw their wickets away: Strauss sweeping (*facepalm*) and Trott being stumped off a full toss in a manner which no text description can fully do justice. Prior and Patel, meantime, just went with the standard failure to get forward and were out lbw. Only Cook (to the seamer) and Bell (much later) were out to properly good deliveries. After the innings was all but over, Broad (28), Swann (24) and even Jimmy (23*) and Monty (13) hit the ball around brilliantly to give the scorecard some respectability. The fact that Monty hit a four back over the bowler’s head and Jimmy reverse swept a ball for four shows just how good the wicket was and just how poorly the top order played, however.

Today was the UAE all over again and England really have no excuse. The bowlers have single-handedly kept us in the match again, but we are going to need runs from our top order. We have a skilled lineup and the pitch should still be flat for the chase (it’s unlikely to occur on day four, let alone five), so if the batsmen come to the party we can chase 350. One would have to say, however, that Sri Lanka’s lead of 200 is probably already enough.

Walk when out

This is a few days old, but I missed it at the time: Graeme Swann said that Sri Lankan batsman Dilruwan Perera was a ‘cheat’ for not walking after edging a delivery from Jimmy Anderson to slip and not walking. With the umpires unsighted and no cameras at the warmup match Perera was allowed to continue his innings, to the fury of the England players. I would not call it cheating, as he has not contravened any laws, but it certainly is unsporting and especially in a warmup match I think it is despicable behaviour. I understand that a batsman has a duty to try and see his team win the match, but in a warmup match the result is largely irrelevant, so why try to gain an unfair advantage?

It does raise (again) the question of walking in a Test match though. It is a little bit more complicated; the result does matter, so should a batsman do whatever he has to do to stay at the crease? In a word: no. Any sport, not just cricket, is reliant on fair play by all the participants. One does not make an umpire adjudicate if one’s of stump goes cart-wheeling and an edge to slip, even taken near the ground, is usually just as clear cut. The ball has been hit and caught cleanly, so get back to the pavilion. To do otherwise may not be cheating, but it is gaining an unfair advantage by exploiting the limitations of the umpires and of technology. It is dishonest and regardless of how much it helps the team it should not be allowed. The point of any sport is fair competition and resorting to dishonest methods, whether merely unsporting or outright cheating, devalues any subsequent victory.

It is impossible to police, of course, but I do wish that team management, fans and media would come down much more harshly on players who try to con umpires. (Though cricket is much better than most sports.) Players who ‘compete’ like that damage their own and the team’s image and it should not be tolerated. I know it will probably never happen, and that it is probably overly idealistic to even suggest it, but that does not make it wrong.