England Thump Sri Lanka
This had everything you would expect from a typical English test match. A standard England batting collapse, a hard fought century from a Yorkshireman, an underwhelming opening first innings total, James Anderson and Stuart Broad making things happen with the ball in hand to rescue the situation.
Maybe I'm being unfair to England, but overall it's difficult to judge this batting line up based on this game, for so many reasons. First of all, the conditions were very bowler friendly, as Anderson will attest. Secondly, it's the first test of the summer, and for Vince, his first ever test match, and England only got to bat for one innings. I'll start by trying to assess the batting though, since a first innings total of 298, even put into bat at Headingley, isn't a good total. I want to start with the slight negatives, because very soon they're going to give way to outlandish praise. And I have to say, all of the negatives I have from this match are very much tempered by situation.
So the batting order fell apart. That's a kinda standard English thing to do. Cook and Root will both be very disappointed that they threw their wickets away, but they're both in hot form and we know that they're both capable of more. So there's absolutely zero long term worries about those two. Ditto Ben Stokes, who we know is very much a hot and cold player, mercurial, capable of madness. Also, because he bowled well and was unlucky to only take the one wicket, although he only bowled seven overs in the match because of a worrying blow to his knee.
So moving away from the stalwarts, the three we don't have to worry about, to those whose place in the are more under question. Starting with Nick Compton at three, who has several young batsmen knocking on the door behind him (Gary Ballance who averages nearly 50 in tests is struggling for form at Yorkshire and Ian Bell is in hot form). Compton, however, got unlucky. Of all of the top six that got out incredibly cheaply, Compton was the only one who was actually got out, facing a cracking ball whereas the other five gave their wickets away. This leads us to Vince, who on debut only made nine, before playing a loose shot. Vince looks talented, and certainly should be given both the Sri Lanka and Pakistan series to show what he can do, so I'm not going to judge him on one short, albeit disappointing innings.
And then there's Alex Hales. Hales was arguably the batsman going into this series under the most pressure, with Robson and Lyth hammering big scores for their counties, questions over whether he could make the transition from the short form of the game and a really poor series against South Africa. But, Hales hit back here, with a good score at a crucial period of the game. With England reduced to 83-5, Hales was forced to play a more defensive game, with a strike rate in the upper 30s, lower 40s, and taking over two hundred deliveries to reach his 86. Despite taking flak for that, Hales deserves plaudits. He's someone who is hard-wired to play a pinch hitting game, but what he played on Thursday was very much a test match innings, and the innings of a test match opener, as England recovered to pass the two hundred mark on Friday morning, still just five wickets down. It's just a shame that Hales' natural instincts took over and he tried a big shot that cost him his wicket, as he looked nailed on to make his maiden test century.
But one man who did convert his positive start into a century was the man of the match, Jonny Bairstow, whose sensational 140 from 183 lifted England to 298 on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Bairstow came to the crease with his side in dire straights, but almost immediately counter-punched, putting on a century stand with Hales, scoring 91 of the 141 that they put on together. When Hales fell, Bairstow played slightly more cautiously until he got out of the nervous 90s, but with Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad gone cheaply, and England 233/8, he recognised that he needed to score fast and turned 100 into 140 in no time at all to elevate England to just shy of 300. On a pitch where only two other batsmen even made fifties, and where Bairstow himself outscored each of Sri Lanka's individual innings, it was a very, very fine innings from YJB, for only his second test century, and his first in his own country. It's fitting that it came on his home ground.
But from there on out, it's all about one man, James Anderson. Anderson and Broad both bowled terrifically on days two and three, but as much as England's attack is very much a team effort, and as much as the other bowlers deserve their plaudits for supporting Jimmy, it was very much Anderson's test match, as he took two 5-fers, to finish with astonishing match figures of 10-45, as Sri Lanka were bowled out for 91 and 119 to lose by a shambolic innings and 88 runs.
And make no mistake, Sri Lanka were a shambles, an embarrassment, bad beyond belief. Mendis' second innings 53 their only fifty over the two innings and other than some brief resistance from Thirimanne and Mathews in the first innings, and Mendis in the second, they rolled over and let England pummel them. Their openers made a combined total of 32 over their two innings, 25 of them scored by Silva. Even more damning was their lower order. The top six made a staggering 88% of their runs, with the bottom five making less than 7%, scoring a grand total of fourteen runs over the two innings. That's five batsmen, two innings each, averaging less than one and a half runs. Frankly it's a miracle that none of them made a pair.
But as bad as Sri Lanka were, England's bowling was simply awesome. On Friday night, with the ball swinging all over the place, Anderson and Broad were unplayable as Sri Lanka's last six wickets fell for just fourteen runs, Anderson finishing with 5-16, an economy of less than one and a half as he took apart the lower order.
And England started as they meant to go on, needing just 35 overs on a heavily rain-interrupted Saturday to finish off Sri Lanka, who would have been lucky to make it to lunch if the game hadn't been hit by lashes of bad weather. Anderson removed the openers again, and although Mendis at three put up a good fight, England's bowlers worked as a team to take apart the rest of Sri Lanka around him, with Ali, Broad and Finn dismissing Chandimaal, Mathews and Thirimanne respectively. With Anderson having already dismissed Mendis and Shanaka by the time Finn displaced Thirimanne, Herath and Chameera in the space of five deliveries, it was always going to be Anderson himself who finished off the match, knocking down Pradeep's stumps to claim his second 5-fer of the match.
Going into this test match, I was confident. Throughout England's innings, I made the point: wait until England get a chance to bowl on this pitch. It was impossible to judge what a good first innings score was for England until Sri Lanka had batted, because in English conditions, I had full confidence that England's bowling line up, easily the strongest area of their team, would do the damage. Broad and Anderson proved me right, as two of, if not the best two, swing bowlers in world cricket demolished Sri Lanka and made 298 look like a very good score. That said, I hadn't quite anticipated a collapse of this magnitude.
So for England, a brilliant start to the summer. For Sri Lanka, an abysmal one. But when the dust settles, and we ask the question: what did we learn from this, the answer will be: not much. We learned Alex Hales is capable of a world class test innings. We learned that Jonny Bairstow is capable of turning his imperious first class form into an international century. But beyond that? We already knew Anderson was one of the best bowlers of all time, and that Sri Lanka's batting lineup was frail and inexperienced. So let's wait and see what happens in the next two tests.
United Triumph
And just after England finished routing Sri Lanka, Manchester United and Crystal Palace played out a largely tedious, although exciting in the end, FA Cup final, that gave Manchester United their first and only trophy of Louis Van Gaal's reign in a manner that rather sums up his tenure at the club: not very exciting, but eventually largely effective, somehow, as a thunderous volley from Jesse Lingard light up an affair that had largely up until that point been more about the referee than anything else.
Certainly Clattenburg was in the spotlight as he gave one (stonewall) red card, and could easily have given at least one if not two more, with Damien Delaney pushing his luck with a reckless challenge and Wayne Rooney pushing his luck on multiple occasions, to the point where when he committed a high and late dodgy foul late on, and the referee let him off without a second yellow, the only excuse you could think of was: it's Wayne Rooney.
Moreover, Clattenburg made three big calls in the first half against Palace, twice blowing up for a Palace free kick when even waiting a split-second would have resulted in Palace being in on goal, Conor Wickham in particular fuming when his shot past De Gea had already been called a Palace free kick, and the third a possible penalty after Rooney gave Daley Blind a nightmare of a backpass, Blind couldn't hold onto it and Rooney stormed in to challenge Zaha in the box. He was nowhere near the ball, but he also didn't catch Zaha, so I feel as though the referee made the right call on that one at least.
Away from Clattenburg, there was precious little to talk about for the first eighty minutes or so. United dominated the ball without creating too much in the first half, a snatched shot from Juan Mata after dreadful Palace defending their only shot on target in the first half, as Hennessey clawed it out. In the second half United were much better, Martial's clever flicked header hitting the post and a lovely touch from Rashford setting Fellaini in, only for the Belgian to crash against the frame of the goal when really he had to score, or at the least hit the target.
Those three decent chances aside, United created almost nothing. Martial was very quiet, having six shots but not hitting the target once, Rooney and Carrick knocking the ball around nicely but struggling to penetrate and the clever passing of Juan Mata and the sheer pace of Marcus Rashford the only two options that looked likely to make something happen.
Palace on the other hand, looked dangerous when they came forward, up to a point, in that they didn't actually create too many real chances. They almost never actually did get forward and although they got in some decent positions, Wilfried Zaha showed exactly why he wasn't good enough to play for Manchester United, as on multiple occasions he had really decent opportunities to run in on goal, only to produce absolutely nothing. It wasn't until the introduction of Jason Puncheon that things livened up, as Martial carelessly played Puncheon onside and he arrived at the back post to slam in a wonderful volley with ten minutes to go.
And then Palace fell apart, allowing Rooney to slalom through their defence with incredible ease and play a clever ball to Fellaini, whose one abundant skill is his height and strength, knocking it down for Mata to fire home, with the unfortunate Joel Ward unable to block it on the line, despite putting in a stellar defensive performance up until that point.
And from there, the game went to extra time, and when Chris Smalling got himself sent off, it looked as if the game was going to penalties, before an absolutely sumptuous volley from Jesse Lingard gave United a probably deserved win.
It's just a shame that this is LVG's last (and only) hurrah, as Jose Mourinho is coming in to replace him. Just when I thought this week couldn't get any worse.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Hibs beat Rangers 3-2 to win the Scottish Cup.
- Sarries v Exeter in the Premiership final.
- The French Open is underway...without Federer
- And England play a friendly today...without half their squad.
SURPRISE: there's more.
Tune in tomorrow for something very different that I want to try out over the next month or so as we build up to the Euros.
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