Gloomy skies foreshadowed a third truncated day's play in a row at the Rose Bowl, disappointing fans and administrators alike in what is the venue's debut test match. What play was able to take place (about 50 overs worth) raised interesting questions both on and off the field however. Resuming on 177-9, Sri Lanka's final wicket pair took the total on to 184 when Stuart Broad struck in the fourth over of the day. It was Broad's first wicket of the innings and only his seventh of the series. Further to this, it was Broad's sixth scalp of the seven taken from numbers 7-11 in the batting order, during which time he has twice gone for over hundred runs in an innings. Not only does this suggest that he is grossly out of form, but it also suggests that he is being overbowled and brought on to take cheap tail end wickets when his bowling performances earlier in each innings have hardly merited such preferential treatment. In this test match he took the first new ball of the game in favour of Chris Tremlett, despite this being the latter's home ground for much of his career and the folly of this decision was born out by Tremlett's 6 wickets to Broad's 1. Against better batting line ups these decisions may prove costly and again this morning Broad was offered first go at the cheap tail end wickets opening up this time alongside Tremlett. It is my opinion that the England management have backed themselves into a corner by promoting Broad to a captaincy role in the T20 form of the game, making him practically undroppable across the board when his test form sees him replaced by the objective observer when Tim Bresnan returns to full fitness.
England's reply started shakily as it often has done in this 3 match series, with Andrew Strauss once more falling cheaply to the left arm seam of Welegedera. There is a technical issue to be addressed here by Strauss in tandem with the batting coach, Graham Gooch, and doubtless they will take the opportunity of Strauss' recent retirement from ODI cricket to put in some long hours in the indoor school during the next few weeks before the arrival on these shores of the Indians, among whose number is Zaheer Khan, the foremost exponent of left arm seam bowling in world cricket. The recently prolific Jonathan Trott departed soon afterwards for 4, after which Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen took England to lunch on 54-2 with few alarms, Pietersen looking very positive in particular with his decisive footwork and straight driving.
Unfortunately the afternoon session was almost entirely a washout, with only 5 or so overs able to be bowled in two minute sessions. This frustrated a healthy sized crowd, whose thirst was well refreshed by this point in the day's proceedings. The sense of irritation was compounded somewhat by a combination of the vagaries of the test match game and its traditions and a prevailing lack of common sense on the part of the umpires and groundstaff. With test match cricket's future somewhat in the balance it is surely imperative that the players and officials alike are seen to be ensuring that the players take the field wherever possible. As much as the scattered showers forced the hand of the officials, it understandably annoyed spectators to see the players leave the field at the outbreak of a shower whereupon the covers were brought on. Invariably this was followed by the cessation of the shower and ten or fifteen minutes of seemingly nothing happening before the umpires inspected the outfield and suggested a resumption of play in another ten or twenty minutes. The players then trooped out before play was again halted by rain and the process began again. The idea that players go off for rain is particularly quaint to cricket but the whole system looks even more antiquated and archaic when this rather unnecessary rigmarole of the inspection is bookended by utterly pointless pockets of time (ten or fifteen minutes in this case). Spectators seeing the covers on when sunshine has broken out and then taken off finally when another black cloud has rolled into view are entitled to feel puzzled. These arcane traditions are likely to put off many spectators from potentially returning to future days of test cricket as is the seemingly fixed nature of the intervals in a day's test match play. An inspection at 3.30 pm prompted a 4pm resumption and a 4.40pm tea break, only for rain to return the players to the pavilion as soon as they had reached the middle and before a ball was bowled. The PA system then announced that tea would now be taken at 4.10pm instead, leaving spectators with the further frustration of seeing the tea interval bathe the ground in sunshine before the 4.30 resumption was marked by the heaviest deluge of the day. We are only talking about twenty or thirty minute windows here in a day which would have been interrupted by rain delays anyway, but some modernisation needs to take place in the matter for test cricket to remain relevant and attractive to as wide an audience as possible. Certainly the meal intervals would be the first thing to address, because it is patently absurd to this observer at least that players who have been in the field for less than 5 overs since the end of the lunch interval need to have a tea interval. It hardly seems as if they might expire on the field of play should they forego the tea interval, and in any case the lengthy rain delays offered them the chance to have their tea several times over during the afternoon.
Thankfully, play was able to resume at 5.20pm and 30 or so overs were bowled up until the close of play at 7.30pm. During this passage of play both Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen reached their half centuries on a pitch which was still very much offering something to the bowlers in addition to the helpful overhead conditions. Pietersen in particular looked comfortably at his best form on English soil for quite some time and was wonderfully fluent in hitting 85 from only 114 balls on this sporting wicket. He peppered his innings with 14 wonderful boundaries, many of which were encouragingly hit straight back past the bowler. There was one slightly rash foray down the pitch to the bowling of Herath, the left arm spinner whose number seem to have become Pietersen's achilles heel, but otherwise this was a flawless innings and it was both a shock and a shame to see him drive loosely in the penultimate over of the day to be caught behind the wicket. Pietersen's quick scoring, with support from Cook (55) and Ian Bell (39 not out from 48 balls) saw England close on 195-4, raising the prospect of a sizeable England lead on first innings and a potential innings victory on Monday. However it seems likely that the weather will have the final say and the match drawn to leave England as series victors by one test to nil.
great read
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