Ah summer is truely here....on the day that the World Cup starts we have the 1st Test of the summer aganst Sri Lanka. Whilst it may not set the juices flowing in the same way as say Tests against Australia or South Africa, they are a decent side and will be a good work out for the 5 Test series against India later in the summer. Anyway SL won the toss and fielded, England are 98-3 at lunch with skip back in the hutch along with Jordan and Ballance. The redoubtable Ian Bell is still there with Joe Root, these 2 still nned to be there at tea if a decent 1st innings score is to be achieved.......
I'd say it was about even at lunch. If you win the toss and bowl you have to expect 3 wickets at least before lunch. Should be good for batting this afternoon.
Bell gone shortly after reaching his 50.......now 123-4........SL will be pleased with their work so far....
Good recovery by Root and Moeen to get to 195-4 at tea...chance to build a decent score to put the SL batsmen under pressure.... Over rate has been dreadful, only 53 over bowled, so 37 are due to be bowled in final 2 1/2 hours, highly unlikely, paying public are being short changed, but ICC do nothing about it......
a good bit of edge in this series as a result of the mankading incident.. impressed by Mo Ali so far.. best beard since Dr W.G..
Five down now - another wicket tonight and it's Sri Lanka's day. Prior has something to prove. He was lucky to get back in ahead of Buttler imo.
England should be well happy recovering from the first session. 344-5 makes it their day. Sri Lanka have the batsmen to make hay on this pitch so we need to push on towards 500 tomorrow...
Dood morning for England adding 130 odd to the overnight score....seems Prior, Jordan and Broad were told to go out and smash the ball all over the place....meanwhile a very good 150 for Root, quietly accumalting runs whilst the others took the steam out off the SL bowling. Get 500 plus and then get the bowlers to apply the pressure.....
575 will do very nicely, Root double century is the icing on the cake, let's hope the bowlers do their bit now, might be over in four days...
What a difference a couple of days make! From being in a position to dictate the finish England are now hanging on to avoid giving SriLanka a winnable target, too many rash shots as usual...
