England v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, Lords, 29 August - 2 September, 2024

Clearly Kamindu should be batting at 4 or 5 so he doesnt have to bat with the tail all the time. And we got the usual bazball barrage vs the tail. England took 7 wkts bowling pretty full. Pitch is drying out now and probably wont be so easy to bat on, plus a bit more cloud tomorrow. But a great day for the england crowd even if there were only 76.3 overs.

Basil - not a Test batter, or not a Test opener?

Lankans clearly outclassed here.

lardbucket wrote:Basil - not a Test batter, or not a Test opener?

Certainly not an opener and I have serious reservations about his overall quality. It's not that there isn't competition for the spare batting place either. There's Jordan Cox and James Rew to name but two.

True. While Root is still available, you need Cox in there.

Century no. 34 for Joe Root. He's not bad.

Passes Cook's century tally, and Cook's overall runs tally is in sight.

One more ton and he leapfrogs about 4 players.

Yep. Cricinfo's on it ...

" Just about the only record he didn't chalk off in that innings was Alastair Cook's England runs record, but he's drawing very close now! Just 95 runs adrift, with Sri Lanka's great Kumar Sangakkara next in his sights, a mere 23 away ..."

Actually there's quite a gap to the next milestones (Dravid and Kallis, one run apart) once he gets the next 100 runs and passes Sangakkara and Cook ... but he's only 1001 behind Ponting now, and you'd think he will get there easily in the next 12 months. After that there's only that bloke who wasn't as good as Lara ...

Off for bad light. Unbelievable, get the floodlights on and get on with it. No wonder test cricket is in the shoite.

Maybe they need more powerful lights. only 67 overs today. And Englands top 3 are really in need of a score. Warnings of possible t-storms tomorrow.

Lost Wombat wrote:Maybe they need more powerful lights. only 67 overs today. And Englands top 3 are really in need of a score. Warnings of possible t-storms tomorrow.

Lawrence is only there as cover for Crawley, after that it's back to the drinks cart.

Pope is or should be, in the firing line. I'd give him the remaining tests and then review. A possible route back to the test team for YJB?

Basil wrote:Century no. 34 for Joe Root. He's not bad.

Quality. Had he made a ton in each innings in a Test previously?

skully wrote:

Basil wrote:Century no. 34 for Joe Root. He's not bad.

Quality. Had he made a ton in each innings in a Test previously?

AFAIK it was the first time. I think his 2nd 100 was better than the first as they had to get a move on, and wkts were falling to god awful shots at the other end [see theway hero Gus got out], and then he started wiping at everything too and scoring slower although i believe they said it was his fastest 100.

Since 2021 he has had 88 innings 8no, 4554 runs av 56.92, 17x100 15x50 from 48 tests.

Meanwhile we have play in the sunshine for now and almost empty Lords. Presumably the dismal forcast has kept most people away. pretty warm out there today too. Prabath hanging in there so far, but Chutney dropped by Root [wearing those rapper shades prob why] and it goes for 4.

A matter of time for Lanka.

So 5 out of 5 for england so far and everything might look rosy but the top order except for root is looking rather iffy ATM. Too many gifting their wkts.

Forcast turned out completly wrong, hot sun all day, pitch was fairly quiet although i think Silva got a low one.

Slanka struggled hard but england bowled pretty well. Gus got another honor 100 and 5fer, Woakes was unlucky again constantly beating the bat and then had lbw against chandimal overturned, wrongly i think, by the 3rd ump after UE detected a slight noise before the ball hit the pad. but he should have noticed that this occured before the ball reached the bat. There was clear daylight on the tv replay which everyone could see. Didnt cost england as Gus got him not long after.

I'm guessing England will stick with the same XI for the third test, but I would be happy to see Josh Hull get a game.

Big Game for Root and Gus.

Congrats to them and England.

No change, surely.

Maybe Hull for Potts?

Poms good, Lanka rubbish.

skully wrote:Poms good, Lanka rubbish.

Aye, the gap between the haves and the have nots in test cricket is growing everywhere larger

Is Pakistan now a have or a have not?