Sri Lanka 236 (Dhananjaya 74, Woakes 3/32) England 22/0 (Duckett 13*)
I attended the first day at Old Trafford today. While it had some interest, overall, it was a tedious day that did not deliver value for money for paying ticketholders.
Firstly, we saw a terrible start for Sri Lanka who were reduced to 6/3. Gus Atkinson and Chris Woakes were tight and brought about frustration from the openers. Mark Wood was again bowling fast – his first ball a mere 94mph, and Kusal Mendis got what Jonathan Agnew on the BBC referred to as a ‘horrible ball’. I am not sure what Mendis could have done as Wood got some steep bounce. Angelo Matthews inexplicably left a Woakes straight ball before Shoib Bashir profitted from some worrying low bounce, trapping Dinesh Chandimal LBW. It looked a typical Old Trafford pitch – except for the low bounce which is a mystery.
More wickets came after lunch with Prabath Jayasuriya unable to take advantage of a strange wicket off a no ball that was only called when the batter was almost off the field. This brought together Dhananjaya de Silva and Milan Rathnayake who both played really well in a strong partnership. Ollie Pope set postive fields that Dhananjaya (74) and Rathnayake (72) profitted from, but retaining the leg slip led to the departure of Dhananjaya, who may well now wish he had gone for a big hit instead of clipping the ball directly to Dan Lawrence.
Up to this point, we saw lots of good cricket. Woakes, Atkinson, Wood, Bashir, Dhananjaya and Rathnayake all deserve a mention. The Sri Lanka top order were always going to struggle with the mostly good bounce – and the bad bounce, though the some of the dismissals were down to poor strokeplay and technique, as much as tight bowling. The first poor bit of cricket we saw was the wicket off a no ball. What made this unusual is that the no ball was for a third ball in the over being over height. The umpire had indicated two for the over, so Atkinson ought to have moved away from the bouncer. Luckily for Atkinson, it was not an expensive miss.
From then on, the quality of the cricket fell off a cliff for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, England kept dropping it short to Rathnayake, who, for a while, enjoyed one easy pull for over per over. We give Sri Lanka credit for getting up to 176/8, having been 92/6, but while Rathnayake played well, he was gifted some runs by England’s short ball obsession.
England should have finished Sri Lanka off before bad light became an issue – on two counts. Firstly, the over rate was so slow that England were way behind at lunch and tea where they should have been in terms of the number of overs bowled. It leads to a bored crowd. Secondly, England went for the short ball ploy. With Sri Lanka 8 wickets down, Pope made the same errors as Stokes, Root and Cook before him. What was needed was some straight bowling, but we saw one short ball every over and many seemed to whistle away through midwicket.
After a somewhat ineffectual spell by Matt Potts, whose bowling lacked the intent of the other seamers, Joe Root was inexplicably brought on when surely it was time for Woakes. From the crowd, it was not easy to tell when the umpires intervened exactly – this certainly needs an announcement through the PA system – but when Pope tried to bring Wood back, the umpires said no, Wood was too fast for the light. We found ourselves back in the farce where 4 fast bowlers were not allowed to bowl due to bad light – when all the flood lights were on. We saw this last year as well. I am sorry, but I can not comprehend how it can be bad light, with flood lights on and tail enders hitting fours. It makes no sense – you try and explain to someone who does not know much about cricket that test match cricket is the best format when we have this nonsense going on. You will not succeed.
Thus, we had the combination of slow over rate, strange captaincy, England’s choice of bowling short to tail enders and poor umpiring in relation to bad light all coming together to create tedium. I am certain the fast bowlers should have been allowed to bowl for longer, but equally, if the over rate had been up to scratch, we would have seen better cricket. The stewards were busy stopping beer snakes in the party stand – but we can not be surprised that the crowd are restless in these situations.
The one good bit of cricket late in the day was in the retention of positve fields, combined with tight bowling from Bashir and Root. England eventually got Rathnayake to go for a big hit, and he mis-cued before Vishwa Fernando and Asitha Fernando messed up the running, resulting in a final run out.
England were never going to prod and poke against Jayasuriya and Dhananjaya, so Ben Duckett, in particlar, and Dan Lawrence raced to 22/0, at which point Sri Lanka bought pace bowling on which resulted in the close. In the last half hour or so, the light was poor so this was perhaps fair enough. An hour earlier, though the light was not that bad and those big flood lights continued to shine. Yet we had to watch 14 over of easy spin, giftinh Sri Lanka an extra 20 or so runs.
My overriding summary of the day – if we have flood lights turned on, use them. If that means a different ball (pink or whatever), we need to go with that. Alternatively, bin the lights in test matches as they are totally pointless at the moment.
England will be batting in difficult wether today and I think they might live to regret not bowling Sri Lanka out for 150. Saying that, they probably will score 280, which will be enough to go on and win.
Cricketed 