Sri Lanka v England, 2nd Test, Kandy, 14-18 November, 2018

Can the Lankans regroup?

who is the next Herath?

How do we get all our wicketkeepers into the team?

As I posted in the first test thread- surely they’ll go with Foakes as the test keeper for the foreseeable future.

Bairstow to bat at three?

We have to drop someone to get him in though, so who? Can we really go in with only two seamers? Do we have enough spin options without Rashid? Is Buttler dispensable, or more likely to score substantial runs than Bairstow anyway?

My hunch is that it will be the same team for England. Chandimal is out of the remaining tests.

So, they’ve lost their best two players, team manager has resigned, and spinner Dananjaya is being investigated for possible chucking (though free to play for now). All set up for a complacent England to capitulate to an innings defeat...

I would go with same team for England. Bairstow’s red ball form has been crap this year, he has to earn his place back.

Stokesy at 3 who saw that coming?

He'll probably make a hundred.

whitburn wrote:Stokesy at 3 who saw that coming?

Didn't work

England in a bit of bother at 5-156.

Looking to the 2 keepers to save them again.

Deary me. There's only one thing more infuriating to a supporter than seeing a batsman get out to the reverse sweep in Test. That's getting out in a Test when your team is in trouble.

Terrible premediated shot by Buttler.

Top knock by Curran

What an impressive young cricketer Curran is. Heart of a lion.

Since when did Ian Ward become so high up in Sky's cricket hierarchy that he become a fully fledged commentator? What the actual ******.

Hehehe, I did ponder that point myself.

Sri Lanka were looking good to come out on top from their maelstrom in the last Test.

Then along came a strong Curran and dragged them under again.


Still, not much in it.

Nowt to choose between the teams 1st innings by the looks of it.

Roshen Silva batting well with the tail to get the Lankans a lead.

50-ish lead, where's your money then?

Weird five penalty runs, at that point.


Good for the game (in both senses) that Sri Lanka came back and showed better fight this time around, the tail in particular wagging strongly.

Might be good for England too, beyond this Test. The newcomers breezing in and breezing along will do well to realise it's rarely that easy for long, and keep improving effort, application, performance as they will certainly need to.

SL have their noses in front, but batting last, who knows?

I think that’s a winning lead, on this pitch. Beaten at our own game, in terms of tailend runs... we need a supreme batting effort to set them a testing target.

Interesting to see Leach come out as nightwatchman... it’s rare for a team to employ a Jon Snow in place of an opener, given it’s the opener’s job to survive the new ball in testing conditions - and for just one over? Still, flexible batting orders and all that...

Lead looking very very fragile with half the team gone.

whitburn wrote:Lead looking very very fragile with half the team gone.

Another 100 runs and England are faves.