England v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test: Day 2 - Abject Sri Lankan Surrender

 

England v Sri Lanka

2^nd Test: Day 2

Abject Sri Lankan Surrender

 

May 28^th  2016

 

Not everything has gone right for England in this series. Today though they put in as complete a performance as we have seen in recent years. It has to be said that Sri Lanka’s surrender, on a pitch that allowed Steve Finn to bat, once again, in some comfort, was as abject as anything served up by Bangladesh or Zimbabwe at their worst. The tone was set in the first half hour with two bad misses in the field, one of them so awful that it led to the wicket-keeper being substituted. It continued with Moeen Ali passing 50 for just the second time since the end of last summer before setting out to flay the bowling to all corners and ended at 91-8 on a blameless surface in decent batting conditions.

The good news: Sri Lanka have already lasted longer than in either innings in the 1^st Test. Yes, all of 40 overs.

Once again there will be accusations that England have ambushed Sri Lanka with an uncut pitch that was as green, or even greener than the outfield. It was not. Three of England’s players under most pressure for not performing with the bat – Hales, Moeen and Woakes – were able to either score a Test best (Moeen and Woakes) or, in Hales’s case, show that his previous innings was not a fluke although he just missed out on a Test best. During the England innings there was something for the bowler who bent his back and made a real effort, the odd ball did something, but it was by no means a difficult track to score on. Moeen defended to 50 and then cut loose. Woakes, for the first time, looked like a genuine Test batsman – he has nine First Class centuries and a FC batting average of 36.7 – and Sri Lanka seemed to lose all interest.

At the start of play the target was 400 and that looked complicated: an early wicket and 380 would have been difficult. England said that they wanted 450 (not too many fans would have felt that realistic), but the Moeen show pushed things up to almost 500 when Alistair Cook decided to declare. Yes, 500 in well under 5 sessions and England were being accused by some feed-backers of being defensive and boring.

This time with a good batting pitch, good overhead conditions and a stronger batting line-up, you felt that someone would make a decent score and that Sri Lanka could not possibly  fold cheaply twice. There was no sense of an imminent wicket with every ball. Despite the ritual fall of a Sri Lankan opener early, at 44-1, with Anderson and Broad having each bowled six overs and coming to the end of their opening bursts, the scoreboard moving along and two batsman getting set, this had to be the day when Sri Lanka closed at no worse than 120-3, with the prospect of rain on the fourth day to help out. The luckless Nick Compton had just missed a difficult but, by no means impossible, catch. Things were looking good for the batsmen. Last ball of the twelfth over. Knick. Dying on Jonny Bairstow who swoops and scoops. The batsman stands his ground.

Everything then moves into that pause when innumerable replays are shown from multiple angles, none of them suitable for the job. The batsman knows that if he stands his ground the Third Umpire will inevitably find an angle which the foreshortening and the elevation of the camera will make appear that the ball has bounced or, at least, offer sufficient doubt that a clean catch appears uncertain. It is a standard issue with modern technology: it almost always makes low catches look doubtful. It is a simple physics problem: the front view with a somewhat elevated camera to see over the bowler and umpire means that the ball is moving almost directly away from the camera; there is no horizon reference, there is no depth to the image, we cannot see if the ball has changed direction (i.e. has bounced) and although high-resolution TV has improved things, the resolution of the image when zoomed is never quite high enough or, said another way, the image is never quite sharp enough. It is almost impossible to tell where the ball has bounced because the brain has insufficient information to give a complete trajectory solution.

It is also a problem that could be resolved, or almost resolved, at least for catches behind the wicket by having a camera at a low level, positioned square-on about 20 metres behind the stumps, so that it will be in line with the wicket-keeper or slips. If that is too complicated, a back-facing stumpcam at no more than half stump height and preferably a quarter stump height (the lower, the better) will offer the proper perspective and, at least, give the Third Umpire better data to work with.

The batsman knows that the longer that the Third Umpire is looking at the images, the more replays that are called for, the better the chance that he will get away with it.

This was one of the occasions though when a long delay was just a measure of the Third Umpire going through the process with care. He had to see clear evidence that the ball had bounced. Listeners can hear the dialogue between Umpire and Third Umpire: “first check the front foot” – it was fine… not a No Ball. Then the conversation over the actual catch. The Third Umpire asks for the images to be zoomed. Increasing confidence that it looks clean. Finally, the confirmation: “you can give that Out” and the wave of opprobrium in the Internet from hundreds of fans who saw that the ball had “clearly bounced first”. Yes, it was close, but the first impression of the Umpire and most commentators seeing it live was that the catch was clean.

The breech was made. In came the injured Chandimal who had been substituted having not even moved for the ball when Woakes had offered a gentle dolly to the ‘keeper earlier. Chandimal’s day got no better and Jimmy Anderson could take a rest with figures of 9-1-30-2.

Matthews and Mendis together, the one partnership that you could imagine putting on 150 together. On came Woakes, fresh from 9-37 in the County Championship, with a Test bowling average of 63. First over, good, but with no hint of the drama to come. Second over, a wild swing from Matthews before a not very thin edge (with a loud noise) through to Bairstow. One can only imagine that Matthews, a fine, brave player, is starting to crack under the pressure because he must have been the only one on the ground doubting the edge. Cue the jokes that Shane Watson is the Sri Lankan review coach. Suddenly 44-1 is 58-4 and Sri Lanka are wobbling. A couple of overs of peace, a Steve Finn over that neither threatens the batsman nor the Square Leg Umpire and Chris Woakes comes in for his fourth over. Double-wicket maiden. Mendis and the extra batsman, Siriwardena out, 67-6 and the innings all over bar the shouting.

Even then Sri Lanka appeared to be putting things in their proper context as the adhesive Thirimanne and Herath appeared to be moving calmly to the Close, with England relaxing somewhat. Woakes came off guarding figures of 7-4-9-3 and on came Moeen, adding to his solitary over in the series so far. Four straight maidens and his series figures are now 5-4-2-1. Moeen seems to enjoy playing Sri Lanka in May. Back came Anderson to join Broad with nothing much happening. Penultimate over of the day. Longest Sri Lankan stand of the series. Both sides playing for the Close. And, from nowhere, Broad takes two wickets, the first a standard edge to Anderson, the second a remarkable double-play, with Vince palming a screaming edge into the air for Joe Root to dive and take the re-bound one-handed inches from the turf.

91-8 at the Close and enforcing the follow-on in the first half hour of the morning looks to be a no-brainer. So far, in three innings, Sri Lanka have not lasted a total of 4 sessions. The likelihood is that the match will end tonight unless Sri Lanka find some spirit of resistance from somewhere.