Anybody watching this? England 298 all out Bairstow 140 Sri Lanka 28-3. Broad (2) Anderson (1) I expect Stokes and Broad to take the majority of the wickets at Headingley, they hit the pitch harder and get the ball through. This has never been Andersons favourite pitch... Next test is at the Riverside, I might pop along to one of the days cricket there. Anybody else going?
He's going on the Saturday, that's a day I definitely can't do because that's when I'll have the bairn. Shame.
I am going probably on Friday but am waiting to see what the weather is like later in the week then will decide which day to go
Andersons been swinging it around corners the last few overs. The blokes pretty much unplayable in these conditiond
9 down. Don't know whether Sri Lanka are poor or our bowlers are unplayable tbh. Conditions are perfect for our seamers.
Both. Sri Lanka are rebuilding and are going to have to rely on 2 or 3 batsmen for their total each time, Matthews made a huge error in not referring - he may as well have as no-one else after him really mattered anyway. In home conditions our bowlers are better than any others in the world, though that is the same for many teams now - home advantage in cricket is bigger now than it's ever been. That's why our win away to SA is still astounding no matter how much they under-performed.
Apparently to negate home advantage and doctored pitches to suit the home team, they are thinking of alternate turns to have choice of batting 1st etc. We lost the toss yerterday so shows how bad Sri lanka really are. And yep our seamers are best in the world in home conditions. As for the batting side of things i can't see Compton lasting too long in the team.
Haven't they changed the county games to that format? Away team choses whether they want to field or bat first? Think it's a bollocks idea personally. The toss is part of the game. I'm watching the highlights now, seen nothing of the days play. Bairstow batted brilliantly. Looking forward to a seam masterclass from Jimmy.
It's men against boys tbh mate. The upcoming series with Pakistan will be a much closer contest and with the crowd split 50/50!
Aye agreed. Pakistan's spinners caused us problems over there and I'm sure they'll do the same here. Warne always said "if it seams it'll spin" so it might be a battle of our seamers vs their spinners (I know who I'm backing). Watching us bowl now, absolutely unplayable some of these deliveries.
I was there yesterday. As a neutral (my dad is from SL so I keep an eye on them but I really support England) it was a predictable day. The clouds suit Anderson and the batting line up needs to replace three legends. To lose Dilshan, Jayawardene and Sangakarra within a short space of time would bugger up any team. That being said, it was Hales and Bairstow that put up the total. The rest of the England batting line up performed as well as SL's. Weather could be a factor though. Not sure on the forecast for the rest of the test.
The away team can choose to bowl first, or toss a coin. They can't choose to bat. The idea behind it is to bring more spinners into the game, an area we have never really specialised in and we are generally short of quality options when it comes to selection for England. The pitches will be flatter as all the home teams will know they are going to be batting first, and the groundstaff will therefore produce less seaming wickets, bringing more spinners into the game.
Not sure that`s a particularly good idea tbh. Spinners have always been more effective as the surface starts to wear. Warne, Muralitharan, Mushtaq, Qadir and our own Deadly Underwood et al used the surface they were given. That`s what the toss of the coin and shrewd captaincy was about. We don`t need better surfaces for spinners, we need better bloody spinners. That`s my first thoughts anyway.
