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The crowd at Headingley |
Test series, albeit short ones don’t come
better than this with the first test going down to the last ball and the second
test the penultimate ball. In the words of Sir Ian Botham “test cricket is
alive and well here in England”.
Ultimately this new England team and
administration will be disappointed to lose to a team who nine months ago they
would have been viewing as a warm-up to the India series later this summer. Sri
Lanka are after all a bit of an old fashioned side with bowlers who bowl and batters
who bat. They are however blessed with arguably the best batsman of the modern
era in Sangakkara and the vastly experienced and equally prolific Jayawardene.
Their seam attack on paper lacks bite, but bowled very well on wickets that at
Lord’s would have seemed familiar to them and at Headingley suited them.
The thrilling finishes in both tests, and
the seesaw nature of them throughout makes the poor attendance at Headingley
all the more disappointing. Add to that the fact that Yorkshire had three of their
own playing and it becomes baffling. Is it, as some say because of England’s
allegedly attritional brand of cricket (although what wouldn’t we have given
for some of that in Australia as batsman after batsman got caught on the
legside taking them on!)? Unlikely at the home of G. Boycott and B. Close, in a
county that admires stubborn determination above anything else. Is it that the
team doesn’t feel English? Well did it ‘feel’ English with Strauss, Pietersen,
Lamb, Smith, Greig, D’Olivera etc etc etc etc? Arguably this team feels
particularly English with its ethnic diversity in an English city with a
similar ethnic diversity. Is it the lack of “star names” as others have
suggested? If those people mean that South African bloke then who is going to
pay to watch him embarrassed by an ageing left armer before he reached double
figures and then tell us “it’s the way I play”, then no, it isn’t. Given that
Lord’s had decent crowds we should probably be looking at a long term decline
in attendances in the north, the World Cup and ticket prices for miserly Yorkshiremen.
I hope it’s not because England were thrashed by Australia over the winter, because otherwise grounds would have been empty between 1990 and 2009!
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Jimmy...perplexingly bad record at Headingley |
Having inserted Sri Lanka England’s go to
bowlers were poor with the new ball. Jimmy Anderson has a perplexingly bad test
record at Headingley and him and Broad were tight but unthreatening as they
failed to pitch the ball up. After finally making the breakthrough they
required England chipped away at Sri Lanka’s batting line up with only
Sangakkara riding his luck throughout, particularly against in impressive if
luckless Chris Jordan in only his second test. Prior, after a universally
applauded comeback at Lord’s, dropped Sangakkara in a bizarre fashion once he
had seemed to have clung on to the chest high edge. Broad then chipped in with
his once a series burst of wickets that keep him his place in the side. In fact
it was a hat trick but neither he nor the watching press noticed at first.
Perhaps this is symptomatic of the disarray and constant changing with the wind
in the British media at the moment.
England’s openers, one in need of a return
to form and one in need of showing he is capable at the highest level, saw
England through to stumps calmly. After the early loss of Cook (I’ve read this
phrase a lot-even with another players name in place of Cook!) the next day,
England’s new boys batted superbly to put England in a seemingly unassailable
position. But from here on in it was all Sri Lanka. In the tail only Prior and
Jordan offered anything as Sri Lanka’s medium pacers made the most of
conditions keeping England’s 1st innings lead to just over a hundred.
With the field set for pitched up swing
bowling England’s opening pair of Anderson and Broad banged it in and were
totally ineffective. It was left to Plunkett and some imaginative field
settings as it had been in the first innings and at Lord’s to make inroads but
still the classy trio of Sangakkara, Jayawardene and Mathews first edged Sri
Lanka into a lead and then, with the less classy but doughty Herath, extended
that lead into a daunting one.
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The Beard that's Feared...gutsy display |
The top of England’s batting order
collapsed in a familiar fashion, albeit with different personnel and really
only Ballance can say that he got a really good delivery first up. This gave
Moeen Ali the platform to display a good technique and even better temperament
as he tried to save the series aided by Jordan and at the end Anderson. If the
previous evening batting had been gutless, this was a truly gutsy attempt by
those three which lasted until the penultimate ball when Anderson failed to get
out of the way (or wear) a well directed short pitched ball from Eranga.
So Sri Lanka won a just about deserved
series victory in England for the first time, but where does this leave England
and particularly their beleaguered captain? We were, apparently, promised a new
England and the ‘new boys’ Ballance, Robson, Moeen and still wet behind the
ears Root all got tons and pretty big ones too. Plunkett was the pick of the bowlers
and Jordan troubled Sri Lanka’s best and batted very well too. Priors return,
despite the bizarre dropping of Sangakkara, was also a success and Jimmy
Anderson, after his first proper run out with Lancashire in years looked fresh
and lively, up in the high 80’s again even if he didn’t perform well at
Headingley. Bell, having just been awarded the poisoned chalice of England
player of the year, has looked as pleasing on the eye as ever when batting but
will never be the darling of the crowds for some reason (ginger?). It’s rather
too soon to write him off though, given that he almost single handedly beat
Australia less than a year ago. Cook’s batting form continues to trouble us all-bowl
half volleys outside off peg and wait for him to nick it. I know an old team
mate that could and did do that (although my hands in the slips didn’t
guarantee a wicket!) We know he is class-over 8,000 test runs don’t lie. Is it
the captaincy holding him back? Maybe, though he did score tons in his first
five tests as captain, so then again maybe not. If it is, it is caused by the
constant undermining of him and his captaincy by certain members of the media. Of his captaincy it is certainly right for
the media to examine it, but some of the fields set in this series were very
interesting and even worked-Bell at leg slip, Root at fly slip for example. The
team also looked happy and settled, which is a remarkable feat with so many new
faces in the changing room. Should he have introduced spin earlier at
Headingley? Probably, but Moeen is no Herath and Herath only got three wickets
in the test to Moeen’s two.
England in fact have a lot of positives to
take from this series. With some reservations, the new look batting line-up has
the potential to be around for years. The
two ‘new’ bowlers were impressive and we still have Stokes, Finn and the like
to put pressure on Broad, who continues to flatter to deceive. England cannot adequately replace Swann it
seems until Panesar sorts himself out and people forget how awful Kerrigan was
on debut. And even then Swann was among the very best finger spinners in the
DRS and chucking era, and will not be replaced.
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Swanny....hard to replace |
Cook deserves the chance to continue for at
least the rest of this summer with victories away in India and in the Ashes
already under his belt. As for making changes to management and coaching staff
two matches into a new regime, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever
heard. Even a premier league manager gets more time than that.
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