UK/Ireland/Australia users – you can go here for highlights
Part 2 Direct Video Link
Watch Day 4 highlights – Sri Lanka vs England – the 1st Test at Cardiff played on May 29, 2011
Scoreline: England (1st Inn) 491/5 – Jonathan Trott 203, Ian Bell 98 no, Morgan 14 no
If anyone knows why Kulasekara is not in the squad, do leave a comment. Has he stopped playing test cricket? Can see Welegedara and Fernando in the squad but not him.
For the longer version of the game, I would agree with those who would want to say that SL is at best an Average Test team (I mean at the very very best an average team when they travel). Many times they are seen struggling to get the opposition out even once when they travel to Australia (in Aus even with Murali) and England (yes i could remember a test when murali single handedly bowled eng out twice) but other than that their bowlers don’t seem to be penetrative enough. But without Murali its clearly hard for them. (Also, their tacticians prefer to hold Mendis back not to over expose him to keep him for winning big limited over games for them, I have always been amazed by the shrewd street smart approach of the SL think tank). Kulasekara as Admin pointed out is an excellent bowler but seems to have lost a bit of pace which has made his swing sort of toothless for the time being, probably because of some kind of injury he might have picked up!! Having said that it is important to add that this pitch looks very flat so would want to see how the bowlers from both teams perform in the remaining test matches.
Its not strange that SL is not given full five match series in Eng, Aus or WI and probably SL prefers it that way. when they travel to SA Sri Lanakans just can’t bat on those pitches (to be fair its hard for many teams to bat on the kind of pitches SA plays their home test matches on).
Had it been any other team playing against England and England had been negative in not attempting to get a result I would have been itchy but SL would probably on occassions bat all five days of a test match (if possible) so fine with a drawn test with SL bowlers being given a bit of their own medicine!!
Just out of my gut feeling I felt very wronged when SL beat India in the Galle Test Match once Murali had completed his 800 wickets, the feeling got much stronger when India played much more determined cricket and drew the second test in tough conditions and won the third test in even tougher conditions in their fortress!!
highlights of day 5 will be available on 31 May by around 2:00 PM GMT as Im currently out of town
nOt working!!