| Not quite there |
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| Written by HW SquadStats | ||||||
| Wednesday, 05 December 2007 | ||||||
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Sanath Jayasuriya announced his retirement in the middle of the first Test of the Sri-Lanka-England Test series, giving the match a sense of drama and occasion. Muralitharan broke Warne's record for the highest number of wickets in international Test match cricket, again, giving the Test a sense of drama and occasion. But there was enough drama in the standard of cricket itself to hold interest.
Seldom has a team been playing with its (on paper) second string bowling attack for so long and has been this competitive. A first choice English bowling line up would consist of Simon Jones, Flintoff and under most circumstances, Harmison. Sidebottom, Hoggard, Anderson and Panesar have left little trail of the gap that the absence of these three key bowlers has left. They did well to bowl Sri Lanka out for 188 in the first innings, having reduced them to 42 for 5 at one point, with Hoggard (4 for 29) and Panesar (3 for 46) being the chief destroyers. Where they did miss Flintoff was in the middle order. At 185 for 6, a typical Flintoff cameo could have given them a bigger lead, and shut the Lankans definitively out of the game, psychologically more than in actual cricketing terms. That they didn't get, and without a flagship big hundred, managed to put up 261 (Bell 83, Collingwood 45, Sidebottom 31). England needed the kind of innings Sri Lanka got from Sangakkara in their second innings. Following up after a breathtaking 192 in the second test against Australia, Sangakkara shepherded the Lankan innings with a 152. Support from Jayasuriya (78) and Jayawardene (65) meant there was the ideal combination of one big 150+ knock with several supporting cameos, all of which helped Lanka reach 442 and set England 350 to win. Despite the absence of any real punch from the batsmen that could make them look like they would win at any point in the chase, Bell and Prior hung on gamely, negating spin, swing, uneven bounce and the temptation to go for the target to raise visions of a draw. And it did look a draw would be the result until Murali finally pulled a doosra out of the bag to get rid of Prior. The last four wickets fell in a heap and that was the end of that. England will take more away from the game than a sense of what-could-have-been, given the promising bowling in the first innings, and a few gutsy efforts with the bat. But if they are to level the series at Colombo, they will need a flagship, leading-from-the-front individual effort to pull together the cameos.
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