Sri Lanka v India, 1st Test, Colombo, 23-27 July

well, if we had to have a match with loads of dropped catches and a dead pitch we might as well have had it at the ssc. its going to be hugely rain-affected by the looks of it

hopefully the weather improves for galle and the rps. galle may well have the only result of the series if the weather holds. pity that we dont have kandy on the schedule this time

furriner wrote:F*cking Indian team buncha f*cking wankers. Add to that that wanker Warnapura (Wankerpura?) scoring a century.

SL always seems to do this to us when we play them at home. I still struggle to forget that 950 odd they scored against us in Colombo back in the 90s. 950!

This Indian team will never get to be number one in Tests until we get at least two bowlers capable of making breakthroughs regardless of the pitch or weather conditions, i.e. champion bowlers.

Brass Monkey wrote: Yeah, the little sausage-gobblers aren't here...

Eat $hit and die Ngam!

Puts into context just how good a bowler Srinath really was as opposed to what the stats reflect.

Puts into context just how good a bowler Srinath really was as opposed to what the stats reflect.

Absolutely agree about Srinath's worth to India. He also seemed perpetually unlucky - beat the ball much much more than he got wickets IIRC. I remember a spell in NZ near the end of his career when he was literally unplayable but (IIRC again) got one or two wickets.

I think we (I at least) expected a significant step up in pace/ medium pace bowling quality post Srinath, if for no other reason than that we suddenly seemed to have a spate of decent medium pacers competing for places in the national side. These new guys were all in all much better than the alternatives in the past (90s and maybe just into the 2000s). They were also coming through as part of a system - MRF academy etc. A continuation or upward progression in terms of quality seemed natural.

But while the depth of our medium pace bowling stocks has improved, the individual bowlers are still not as good as I thought they would become. Maybe it needs more time.

Well if we could catch, the figures of our pacers wouldn't have been so bad probably. Especially Zaheer who had to bowl a no-ball when he did catch it.

There is a bit of cycle with these Indian bowlers where they bowl rubbish after coming back from an injury and slowly get their game........and just when they are at their peak they get injured again.

So is it good batting, poor bowling, or a pitch that will be returned to the highways department immediately after play concludes?

We will probably see a different pitch once the Indians start batting.

I'd love to say I'm looking forward to seeing Mendis bowl on this pitch, but there's no live TV of this series to Aus.

Anyone posting links to web broadcasts?

Check your PM.

Good man. Thx.

Yup.

Anyone else wants a link, check in with Zat.

I'm getting my beauty sleep in a minute.

Zat or furry can you PM me the link ? Thanks

Zat/furry,

Can you please PM the link to me?

Out of Samarweera's 7 test tons till date, 4 have been scored on this ground, the SSC.

And I thought bringing more youngsters in the Indian team was meant to improve our fielding? If yesterday's events are anything to go by this certainly doesn't seem to be the case.

He also seemed perpetually unlucky - beat the ball much much more than he got wickets IIRC

Not only that quite a no. of catches too were dropped off his bowling. He certainly was a lot better than his test average suggested.

Looks like SL will go for quick runs, declare at somewhere around 600 and then try to put pressure on Indian batting.

SG wrote:Looks like SL will go for quick runs, declare at somewhere around 600 and then try to put pressure on Indian batting.

Makes sense to me.

What a score,

444 for 4!!!

Must be quite a while since this score was last achieved!!

Ishant walking off after injuring himself. Perfect.

Hopefully it's not too serious.

Looks like Ishant is injured and is walking off the field.

Misfield by Kumble and yet another 4 for Samarweera.

Our fielding has only gone down since Australian tour.

A bit harsh to call that a misfield.

The ball is doing nothing.

This team has had a Dad's army look about it for a while. No surprises to me about the fielding or the lacklustureness on the field. This will continue until we wield some much necessary changes as we have with the ODI team.