Saturday 21 June 2014

Second test...

Day one of the test match went as expected, Sri Lanka grinding out runs but England getting wickets to keep things in the balance.  The cloudy skies & Headingly wicket kept things interesting.  The last session saw England blow Sri Lanka away; two for Jimmy, a hat trick for Broad and a first test fiver for Plunkett.  A very busy afternoon at work so I missed most of the carnage .All out for 257, Kumar top scored again with 79.  England held on to go in with 36 on the board.

Day two dawned bright and clear, England need to bat all day.  Cook was out early bringing back familiar feelings…  A couple of years ago we knew one or two England batsmen would chip in with a score, they always did.  Nowadays things are far less certain, nervous times for an England fan. However Robson and Ballance stayed firm and accumulated runs well into the afternoon.  GB was out for 74 bringing Bell to the crease, scoring freely in his 100th test match.  Robson got to his first test ton just after tea then he and Bell pushed the scoring on passed the SL total.  However the second new ball accounted for Robson who made 127.  A few overs later the end of Bell for another 50+ score sparked a collapse of sorts.  Root and Ali fell cheaply leaving Prior and Jordan to salvage something.  A couple of years ago we could count on runs from the lower order but recently we’re more used to seeing them blown away.  They made it to stumps bringing the score to 320-6 but things aren’t going to be easy in the morning and England need a bigger lead.


Elsewhere most of the world is more interested in the football.  England played poorly and lost to Uruguay, showing the same mistakes in defence as last week.  It was a relief when they were officially knocked out yesterday and we were all put out of our misery.  It’s only football...

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