Sri Lanka v England preview

Two Tests. England have flown 8700 kilometres (roughly) for just two Tests. Admittedly, I’m kind of glad there aren’t any ODIs or T20s on the tour, but two Tests is really not ever enough. Especially given that the Sri Lanka Cricket Board are still in some financial difficulty, one would think that they would be very keen to have as many Tests as possible against England. I concede that it isn’t very feasible, however. It’s hard to fit two tours in after Christmas; there isn’t time for a third Test as it would be clashing badly with the County Championship (the second Test already overlaps slightly with the first round of matches) and England could not really have come much earlier, the Pakistan tour had barely ended anyway. So two Tests it is.

Despite the poor showing in Pakistan, and a poor recent record in Sri Lanka, I think England are still favourites. Sri Lanka don’t have the same quality of bowling that Pakistan have (they still badly miss Murali and Malinga) and our batsmen appear to be in much better form than they were in January. I think the best battles will be when Sri Lanka are batting. We still have one of, if not the, best bowling attacks in the world and one which has shown the ability to take wickets even in unhelpful conditions. At the same time, however, Sri Lanka have the world’s best batsman in Kumar Sangakkara and two very good ones in Thilan Samaraweera and Mahela Jayawardene, though the latter is starting to show his age. England’s bowlers had a brilliant match in the first warmup, but struggled in the second so it’s hard to say how they’ll go in the Tests. Neither match was played at one of this series’ Test grounds so we can’t assume much about the wickets that we didn’t already know. I’m slightly more inclined to think that the bowlers will go well though. England were without Jimmy Anderson in the match where they struggled and as good as Broad is, it is important to have an attack leader. Furthermore, England played two spinners in the first match, as they are likely to do in the Tests, but only one in the second. There will be tough battles against the Test quality opposition, but we know that Sri Lanka are prone to collapse (see the 2011 Cardiff Test) and I think England have the skill to trigger a couple.

Sri Lanka will have seen England in Pakistan though and must be thinking that England are just as if not more vulnerable to collapse as they are. I’m not sure that’s accurate, however. Sri Lanka simply do not have the same bowling strength as Pakistan. Rangana Herath is probably their biggest threat, given England’s problems against spin, and he’s not a bad bowler. He still averages 35 in Test cricket though. The rest of their attack are even worse. Angelo Mathews is out with an injury and will probably never bowl again regardless. The second spinner in the squad, Suraj Randiv, averages over 42 and the two pacemen, Suranga Lakmal and Chanaka Welegedara average 55 and just under 40 respectively. Averages aren’t everything, of course, and England will have to play a lot better against spin than they did in Pakistan, but it does go to show that the Sri Lankan attack is not one that would be feared under normal circumstances. Fortunately for England, the batsmen have got off to a much better start this tour than last time. Cook has scored 163* in his only innings and Strauss and Trott both have unbeaten centuries (both retired). KP, Patel and Prior all have fifties. The only worry is Bell, who has still not found his form. There is still the question of who will bat at six, but Patel seems to be firmly in the lead (thank god) as Bopara will not be able to bowl if picked. (Not that he should do anyway. Jonathan Trott actually has better career figures.)

The matches are not played on paper, as we found out with a bump in the UAE, but England will wish that they were. Even taking into account the struggles into the UAE, England are clearly the much better side. They have far, far better bowlers and at least comparable batsmen. They will have to find a way cope with the very harsh conditions though. Apparently it got up to 46 degrees during the recent warmup match and even if the pitches are not outright hostile for our bowlers, they will not be helpful. I don’t think Sri Lanka have the bowling to force a victory, but they do have the batting to possibly force a draw. I think England will win the series 1-0, though if we play well a 2-0 margin is definitely possible.

There’s still football?

Liverpool played QPR yesterday. Perhaps you heard about the match, we had a 2-0 lead in the 76th minute and blew it, losing 2-3. It was pretty galling, and at the time I was very cross. And I stayed very cross for about ten minutes. In that time I stepped outside. It’s been raining, but it was still quite warm and the flowers are blooming. I then went over to the Lancashire website and read about Luke Procter’s century in the pre-season match in the UAE. And then the football result didn’t really matter. This sort of thing happens every year. It’s usually a few weeks later, but I cannot remember a year in which I’ve really still cared about football after mid-April at the latest.

There are many reasons for this. One of them is because Liverpool don’t have a lot for which to play right now, at least not in the league. (I expect I’ll still care about the FA Cup matches.) It’s no coincidence that I never care after the baseball season and County Championship start though. For me football is a winter sport. Football is great when it’s dark and cold, it is something about which I can care and follow in the middle of winter. But it isn’t the same as cricket. Football is a very divisive, vitriolic sport and although it is so much fun to watch it can be very painful to follow between matches. It interests me, and I can’t really disengage from it, but I don’t enjoy it. But now there is something else. The weather has got warm unusually early and happily the County Championship is starting unusually early too. It is time, or nearly so, to leave the dark and cold of football in favour of the warmth and light of cricket. England’s match against Sri Lanka starts on Monday (late Sunday night here) and Lancashire start the County Championship curtain raiser the day after that. Football has been a lovely diversion since October, but it is no longer needed.

Of course, the season isn’t actually over. No, that will drag on for another two months almost. I’ll still watch. I’ll still enjoy the matches as they take place and I’ll still cheer on Liverpool with all my heart. But any joy or pain from the match will likely end with the broadcast. It just doesn’t matter anymore. The season should be ending. Football is so lucrative that it’s probably lucky that there’s an offseason at all (and even so there only barely is one) but the season is really at least two months too long. It should start a month later than it does and it should end no later than the second week of April. For those who love that sport above all others, some more time off should make the season all the sweeter. For the rest of us, a few months in which to enjoy summer and cricket without the interruption of winter’s sport should not be too much to ask.

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.

DRS in Sri Lanka

According to Cricinfo, the DRS in use for the Sri Lanka v England series will not have HotSpot (which the SLCB cannot afford), but will have Hawk-Eye instead of the much more random looking Virtual Eye. The article also says that Snickometer will be ‘the only tool to aid decisions on catches’ which is odd as it was previously decided that Snicko took too long to be used for the DRS. I don’t know if that has changed or if the article was simply inaccurate, but going off of some other information I’d guess the latter.

Even without HotSpot it is good to have the DRS and even better to have Hawk-Eye over Virtual Eye. I have already made my views on technology clear and I am glad that some form will be in use. The series will be the better for it and maybe now England’s batsmen will learn to actually use their bats on a slow pitch.

Still number one!

There was no play possible due to rain on the fifth day at Dunedin, meaning that regardless of what happens in the last two Tests of the series England will still be number one in the world. A pretty strong argument could be made that we don’t deserve to be, but then a pretty strong argument could be made that South Africa don’t deserve to be either, so it’s probably fair to have it decided by a head to head series this summer. Or maybe I’m just biased (actually I definitely am that, but it doesn’t necessarily make me wrong) and looking for a justification for our clinging on to the top ranking. Either way England can still slip off the top spot before the upcoming series by failing to beat Sri Lanka in the upcoming series there, but that series won’t end until after the official 1 April cutoff date for the ICC prize money. The big series will still be the criminally short three Test affair this summer. I think few would argue with the winner of that being top of the table.

CB Series final preview

After Kohli’s heroics kept India’s hopes alive for an extra few days they still failed to make it to the CB Series final. It’s probably fair in the end, that run chase was the first time they’d really shown up in the entire tour. Sri Lanka’s subsequent victory means part of my initial prediction was accurate: an Australia v Sri Lanka final.

A prolonged final might make things a bit interesting later in the month. Sri Lanka have to return home to face England possibly only 18 days after the match and playing 11 ODIs overseas are not the best preparation for a Test series. (Even at home it’s ill-advised, Australia prepared similarly for the last Ashes.) It’s hard to know if Sri Lanka will be affected by the ODIs or not, but I doubt it will help them. (Obviously I’m hoping it affects them rather a lot!)

I also originally predicted that Australia would win, but Sri Lanka won three of four head to head matches in the group stage. Certainly it will be more interesting than I originally thought. Sri Lanka have, for the most part, done themselves proud, but Australia will have seen India’s run chase in the penultimate match and now know that Malinga has a weakness against batsmen who can repeatedly hit him for six and will be looking to exploit that. I actually think that Sri Lanka looked like the better side in the group stage, so I’m changing my prediction to a 2-1 win for Sri Lanka. (Though that may ensure a 2-0 Aussie victory.) It could be interesting to see how it plays out, but someone idiotically scheduled the final to clash with the first New Zealand v South Africa Test. Guess which match I’ll be watching?

Anyone but Bopara

England start their quest for redemption in Galle on 26 March. They’ve made a good start though, the selectors have shown some ruthlessness and dropped Eoin Morgan from the squad after his abject performance on the pitch in the UAE. (And possibly his nonchalance off the pitch.) James Tredwell was the surprise replacement for him in the squad, with Samit Patel also being added, but it’s not a sure thing that either of them will replace Morgan in the final XI.

The obvious candidate is probably Ravi Bopara. Depressingly, I think he’s also the most likely replacement, despite the fact that he has only ever scored runs against the West Indies. The fact that Bopara is even in the squad baffles me. He has been in and out of the side since 2007 and in that time his overall numbers are 553 runs at 34.56. Those are probably reason enough to be dropped, but when one throws out the 355 runs he made in three matches against the West Indies his average drops to an inexcusable 15.23 with a high score of 44*. Forty-four. By contrast, if one applies the same criteria to Graeme Swann he still averages 17.63 with a high score of 85. Even James Anderson averages 12.89 against teams other than the Windies! The excuse usually given for this is that Bopara can bowl a bit too. That’s technically true, but his bowling is actually worse than his batting: he has one career wicket for the cost of 212 runs.

Fortunately for England there are options apart from Bopara. Samit Patel, whilst still not as fit as I think Flower would like him to be, has put in a lot of work recently and has made it clear that his ambition is to play in the Test side. Whilst I don’t think he is a long-term solution, he may be useful in the two Tests in Sri Lanka as a spinner who can bat reasonably well. Graeme Swann already fills this role to an extent, but there is a case for letting Patel have a go at Test level. There isn’t anyone in the side who is demonstrably a better batsman than Patel (except Tim Bresnan, more on whom below) and whilst I don’t think he can bat to an acceptable standard in Tests, he has done enough that it might be worth giving him a go and finding out for sure.

I still, however, think the best option is Tim Bresnan. He’s a very good bowler anyway and will probably do well on a slower pitch. More than that though, he averages 45 in Test matches. Even if he were to slot straight in at number six and not bowl at all he would probably be the best batsman available. As it is, if he plays it will probably be at seven with Prior at six. That is still a perfectly good option. That would mean that England would still have a very solid 1-7 (and actually a more reliable number six than we have had in quite some time) and with Broad and Swann still effectively bat down to number nine. That would not, however, leave a place for Steven Finn who has been pushing hard for one. Right now, I don’t think that could be avoided, but a good batting performance from Bresnan might see the selectors stick with him at number six in the summer. It’s very, very unlikely of course, but if that did happen it would open up a place for Finn. Since that is so unlikely, however, it might be worth playing Bresnan in the first match and Finn in the second and let them effectively go head to head to see who gets the nod in May. The caveat to that is that playing Finn would lengthen England’s tail.

It’s an interesting decision to make, and whilst I fear they will go with the wrong one (Bopara), Flower has done a very good job and I have a fair bit of faith in him.

Pakistan v England review and player marks

There’s not much more to say about how England performed in this series. No batsman scored a hundred and only Matt Prior averaged over 30 in the series. England were not just poor with the bat, but historically awful. The only series of three or more matches in which England have averaged lower than the 19.06 they did in the UAE was the 1888 Ashes. From that perspective, it’s amazing to think that we definitely ought to have wont he second Test and maybe even the third. It’s hard to know which is more surprising: that the bowlers kept us in the match after the batsmen had failed so badly or that the batsmen threw away such good positions. I’ve compiled marks out of ten for each of the players:

Pakistan
Misbah-ul-Haq* – 7/10
It was only a mediocre series with the bat from the Pakistan captain, but such was the nature of the series that his average of 36 was still fifth highest. More importantly for Pakistan is that he led the side well. It didn’t seem to take a lot to beat England’s batsmen, but he did not give them very many openings with his bowling changes and field placings.

Mohammad Hafeez – 6/10
Only one score of note with the bat, 88 in the first match, but he made it into double figures each of his other innings as well. His main contribution was with the ball, spinning it early in the innings. He took five wickets at 16 apiece, including the wicket of Cook on the first morning that started the rot for England.

Taufeeq Umar – 3/10
Passed fifty in the first Test, but was dismissed cheaply by Swann and Anderson in the next two. Victim of some good bowling, but did not look assured and did not defend well.

Azhar Ali – 9/10
Overcame an indifferent start to the series to finish top of the averages thanks to a match winning 157 in the final Test. He also scored a crucial (and possibly also match winning) 68 in the second Test and showed considerable maturity throughout.

Younis Khan – 6/10
A high score of 127 in a series where only one other batsman made it to three figures would seem to require more than six points out of ten, but he only scored 66 runs in the other four innings in the series. His high score before that knock had been 37 in the opening Test, and that had been ignominiously ended when he was lbw to Jonathan Trott.

Asad Shafiq – 5/10
A very creditable series for a batsman from whom little was expected. He passed 40 in three of the five innings in which he batted, but had difficulty going on and his top score was only 58.

Adnan Akmal† – 4/10
In rating the latest Akmal’s performance it is important to compare him with other wicket-keepers, not just his infamous brother. He did a reasonable job with the gloves, but appealed every time the ball hit the pads. (Though I will concede that a lot of them were out.) Had a hilarious drop early in England’s third Test run chase, but it cost them little. Poor series with the bat, but better than most were expecting.

Abdur Rehman – 9/10
A fantastic series for the left arm spinner, he finished only behind Ajmal in the series wicket tally and was the main destroyer in England’s second and third Test collapses.

Umar Gul – 8/10
Very quietly had a brilliant series. All of the headlines were about England woes against spin and with the effectiveness of Ajmal and Rehman he only needed to bowl 74 overs in the series. In those 74 overs he took 11 wickets at 22.27 and with a strike rate second only to Ajmal.

Saeed Ajmal – 10/10
Came off a brilliant 2011 and could not have made a better start to 2012. England could not read his variations and never got over the mess he made of them in the first innings of the series. Bell in particular looked all at sea facing him. Deserved man of the series.

Aizaz Cheema- 1/10
Only played in the first and third Tests, but was hardly needed. Bowled only 27 overs and took one wicket for 70 runs. Scored 0* in each of his three innings with the bat.

Junaid Khan – 0/10
Sadly, never really showed up. His biggest contribution to the second Test was a terrible drop in the deep with Prior batting in the first innings. Took 0-33 off eight overs in the first innings, did not bowl in the second.

England
Andrew Strauss* – 6/10
Led from the front with a good 56 in the last Test, but that was the high point as he struggled to get onto the front foot the entire series. He used his bowlers to good effect and did a good job keeping spirits up when England were in the field.

Alastair Cook – 5/10
Could not replicate his form from the summer, though he came closest of any English batsman to score a century this series. His soft dismissal in the first innings of the first Test set the tone for the series and he fell cheaply to start the disastrous run chase in the second Test too.

Jonathan Trott – 5/10
Second in England’s batting averages, but needless to say he still had a poor series. Made a good 74 in the second Test, but had an untimely illness in the second and could not meaningfully contribute to the run chase.

Kevin Pietersen – 1/10
Not merely a poor series from KP, but an abysmal one. He threw his wicket away more often than not, his efforts in the second innings of the first Test deserving special criticism. He finally started to find some form in the third Test, but still could not master the trick of hitting the ball with the bat when defending.

Ian Bell – 1/10
Poor Ian. Only once did he look like he could pick the variations from Ajmal and when he did he was trapped by Gul instead. His dismissal in the third Test run chase was one of the worst one will ever see, the very picture of a batsman out of form. From a man who came into the series on the back of an imperious 200 against India, it was rather a shock.

Eoin Morgan – 1/10
Eoin Morgan was supposed to be the man who would play spin. Supposedly his unorthodox style and ability to score quickly and to all parts of the field were going to be invaluable against spin. Instead he consistently threw his wicket away to the spinners. Just for a change in the last Test he threw his wicket away to Gul instead, but the entire series clearly showed up a dearth of application.

Matt Prior† – 7/10
England’s best batsman, plus another good series with the gloves (though he did not have a huge amount to do behind the stumps). He started the series with an unbeaten 70 as England collapsed and finished it with an unbeaten 49. His form dipped in between, but he was one of only two batsmen to get into double figures in the second Test run chase.

Stuart Broad – 9/10
Put in an absolutely amazing effort in the series. He was the pick of the English bowlers with 13 wickets at just over 20 and put England into excellent positions in the second and third Tests. He was more than handy with the bat as well, averaging more than KP, Bell and Morgan and scoring more in one innings (58* in the first innings of the second Test) than Bell did in the series.

Graeme Swann – 8/10
Rather unexpectedly found himself as the second spinner when Monty returned to the side, but still performed admirably. He finished with 13 and an almost identical strike rate to Broad, but conceded about sixty more runs. As usual, he was most effective against left-handers

Jimmy Anderson – 8/10
Took a bit of a back seat to Broad, but certainly did not embarrass himself. He was very unlucky to end up with only nine wickets, but bowled a very tight, probing line throughout.

Monty Panesar – 9/10
England sprung a surprise by playing two spinners in Abu Dhabi, and Monty took the opportunity superbly. He took 6-62 in the second innings to set up what should have been a very straightforward run chase. He was the only English bowler to take five wickets in a match in the series and he did so twice, picking up 14 in all.

Chris Tremlett – 0/10
Only played in the first Test and only had a chance to bowl in the first innings. He took 0-53, never looked particularly threatening and was dropped in favour of Monty.

Despite the poor performance of England in the series, I would not make wholesale changes for Sri Lanka. It is worth remembering that we did come up against some very good bowlers in conditions which suited them. KP and Bell averaged over 70 and over 100 last year, respectively, so to suggest that they be dropped over one poor series is very, very harsh. Similarly, Andrew Strauss has not been in the best of form with the bat, but he is easily the best leader of the side. Cook showed in the ODIs in India that he is not ready for the captaincy yet, and I would certainly not want to entrust Broad with it as I would want some England to still have reviews left after the first over. In any case, Strauss was the best of the full time batsmen in the third Test.

A change I would make is that I would drop Morgan.He has shown in this series that he is not a Test batsman. That is not to say that he will never be one, but he was brought into the side on the back of limited overs performances and I think a season playing first class cricket will do his temperament no end of good. In his place I would play Tim Bresnan, assuming he is fit (which seems likely). Whilst it seems odd to suggest playing one fewer batsman after the struggles in the UAE, Bres has a Test batting average of 45. Not only is this very reasonable on its own, it is actually 15 runs higher than Morgan averages. It’s good enough that I would pick him as a batsman over Mogan and Bopara even if he did not bowl a single ball.

That is the only change I would make, however, the other batsmen have good enough records that they certainly deserve another chance against the weaker Sri Lankan bowling and Monty has easily done enough to stay in the starting XI. It’s been a poor series, but these players will be strongly motivated to put that behind them and play well in Sri Lanka.

Let’s get this over with

Now that the World Series is over I can turn my attention back to England’s disaster of a tour to India. The final match is tomorrow, a one-off T20 in Calcutta. England are the reigning T20 World Champions as well as the number one ranked T20 side according to the ICC’s recently unveiled rankings. Despite this, I can’t see England winning. Admittedly, T20s are rather more of a lottery than any other format (as we saw against the West Indies) but England have played so abjectly against India that it will take a huge slice of luck to win. Graeme Swann will lead the side again and once again it will be a very young side.

After the match England will be able to fly home for a much needed rest until the series against Pakistan in the UAE in the new year. Whilst there will be a lot of questions asked about the performance in India, England have never been all that good at ODIs in India and the focus should certainly be on the upcoming series. Pakistan are playing rather well against Sri Lanka right now, and it is looking like it will be a good contest in January. Pakistan have shown that they have the firepower to bowl England out twice in that series (though they’ll need to improve their fielding). I think this will be the more interesting of the two series. Sri Lanka appear to pose the opposite problem; England found it difficult to bowl them out twice in England this summer and it won’t be any easier in Sri Lanka. England have not actually won a Test match in Sri Lanka since the last match of the 2001 series, but Sri Lanka are a worse side than they have been for some time and England are a much better side. I think England will manage to beat Sri Lanka 1-0, but I’m not sure about Pakistan. It’s going to be a tricky winter and the best thing England can do is get the T20 over with and put the series behind them.