England vs Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, Lords, June 3-7, 2011

vilkrang wrote:This is sh!t.

Swanny is doing alright actually, seamers not so much....

Of course that might be because our current seamer is Jonathan Trott. FFS.

Heh...

vilkrang wrote:Of course that might be because our current seamer is Jonathan Trott. FFS.

Nice one!

I aim to please .

Trott showing that England have missed a pitch up and swing it bowler.

Finn looks to be playing himself out of the team at least.

Henry wrote:Trott showing that England have missed a pitch up and swing it bowler.

We always do, in these conditions in England. It's what makes the choice of bowlers so annoying.

Start the car - match drawn.

Hmm. They still had 15 overs available, and considering what happened at Cardiff and that both Sanga and Mahela are out, I think Captain Conservative was a little too eager to shake hands.

They'd given up. Pretty piss poor, given their batting lineup we only needed a couple and they would have crumbled.

One wicket away from the tail and they just gave up. Amazing.

They'd given up when they brought Trott on, with the best part of an entire session's worth of overs left to bowl. Amazing.

Amazing.

Honestly shouldn't come as a shock as Trott and Pietersen were given the ball.

eowyn wrote:

Henry wrote:Trott showing that England have missed a pitch up and swing it bowler.

We always do, in these conditions in England. It's what makes the choice of bowlers so annoying.

I asked this question the other day - I'm not sure we ever got to the bottom of it: when was the last time England went into a home Test match without a swing bowler?

Has it ever happened? Especially at this time of year.

To an extent the Lanky 'uns were on a hiding to nothing. They all naturally bowl back of a length yet were being asked to pitch up and bowl in the fashion of a swing bowler, and chastised for not seeming to be comfortable doing so.

Weird stuff.

F*cking Alastair Cook. If he hadn't batted so slowly we'd have got those last 7 wickets and we'd be enjoying another heroic win right now.

JKLever wrote:

Dello wrote:Feels like a draw. England's bowlers haven't been "on" all game.

This. Tremors is touching 79mph.

Almost like they've been beaten by the pitch.

He's looked miserable, Tremlett - harking back to the days of Harmi and his "this isn't my kind of pitch" sulking.

Hope it's just a bad few days at the office and not a sign of things to come in terms of his temperament. Not every bowler likes bowling at Lord's...

Chivalry Augustus wrote:F*cking Alastair Cook. If he hadn't batted so slowly we'd have got those last 7 wickets and we'd be enjoying another heroic win right now.

Well, he set the tone for the day that England weren't really serious about pushing for a win.

Thought Broad gave it his all, got to be difficult everytime you pitch the ball up trying to swing it and it gets spanked for 4.

Dello wrote:

Chivalry Augustus wrote:F*cking Alastair Cook. If he hadn't batted so slowly we'd have got those last 7 wickets and we'd be enjoying another heroic win right now.

Well, he set the tone for the day that England weren't really serious about pushing for a win.

Meh. England had a target in mind and a certain number of overs. Wouldn't have mattered who was going to get the runs, Cap'n cautious sets the tone.

Given we let Bell get his ton in Cardiff, you could say the same about the team there.

JKLever wrote:

Wonder if we'll make the Rose Bowl like Colombo for them just like we did Trent Bridge!

Used to be Spicytown at the old RB, but in recent seasons it's gone all roady. So much so that Tremlett thought he'd be better off bowling at the Oval.

If the Oval is considered less roady than the Rose Bowl, we're talking about one roady road.

JKLever wrote:

Dello wrote:

Chivalry Augustus wrote:F*cking Alastair Cook. If he hadn't batted so slowly we'd have got those last 7 wickets and we'd be enjoying another heroic win right now.

Well, he set the tone for the day that England weren't really serious about pushing for a win.

Meh. England had a target in mind and a certain number of overs. Wouldn't have mattered who was going to get the runs, Cap'n cautious sets the tone.

Given we let Bell get his ton in Cardiff, you could say the same about the team there.

I think I probably did say the same there - the Cardiff win was a freak. England weren't in it to win it, and Bell wasting three overs of a shortened final day to get his landmark was confirmation of that.

So Sri Lanka didn't get within 200 of England's declaration, with an hour left to play.

Was 350 off 58 overs a tad cautious? You be the judge...

Kin enda. Pretty tame to say the very least. It's like we're not even vying for 1st spot in the rankings. We're like Coleen Rooney, we're just happy with our lot. It's like Strauss just stole the super-top-secret Graeme Smith captaincy manual and thought it was the most ingenious thing he'd ever read. I'd imagine that Strauss doesn't even jazz up his porridge.

I doubt he even has it with milk. Just water.

Although some people will tell you that's how you're supposed to have porridge.

Never eat any food prepared by those people.