The weather in London yesterday was crap. It was gloomy, wet and breezy – not exactly ideal conditions for watching live cricket. Thankfully however, the game itself turned into an absolute peach if you like bat dominating ball. It’s not often you see over 600 runs in just 81 overs.
The Oval sometimes produces incredibly high scoring affairs and yesterday’s ODI was one of those occasions. Sri Lanka batted with real intent for a change and compiled a rather handy 305-5 off 42 overs. Gunathilaka, Mendis, Chandimal and Mathews all made very good half centuries. None of England’s bowlers, with the possible exception of Adil Rashid, performed particularly well.
Unfortunately for the tourists, however, their large total proved nowhere near enough. Jason Roy had one of those days where you just sit there thinking ‘wow’. He was totally dominant and looked like an fully grown man playing against an U-15 team. His hitting down the ground was particularly imperious.
Roy is prodigiously talented. His technique has its foibles (at least it used to!) but he’s sensational when he’s in the mood. His two centuries in this series show that he’s finally putting it all together. If he keeps this up, he’ll become one of the most feared ODI openers in the world.
Breezy twenties and thirties don’t win games. Big hundreds do. Roy’s 162 came off just 118 deliveries. That’s the kind of meaty contribution that turns heads around the world. It was the second highest score by an England batsman in ODI history.
The biggest score, of course, was Robin Smith’s unbeaten 167 against Australia at Edgbaston back in 1993. Now that was one hell of an innings too. I remember it extremely well – although England ended up losing the game (as was the style at the time).
I’m actually quite glad that The Judge’s record remains intact. His innings was one of the best I’ve ever seen – 167 off 162 balls against Craig McDermott, Merv Hughes and Tim May in an era when bats were smaller, boundaries larger, and anything above 250 was a big score. Here’s the scorecard if you fancy a trip down memory lane.
James Morgan
Also notable is Gower still holding the equal third highest score – all the way back from 1983.
… and Tavare being in the ODI team still makes me chuckle.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/65341.html
There was a feature on Cricinfo of West Indians who had scored 5000+ ODI runs (as Marlon Samuels had just got there). Sir Viv still tops the averages and the strike rate charts (he had a higher strike rate than Gayle, for example).
Roy’s had an excellent series, but I fancy Pakistan’s bowlers will test him more than Sri Lanka’s.
SL are so so so so poor, can’t really take anything from the whole test or odi series
The ICC conference in Edinburgh is nearing its conclusion. So far, the only concrete decision I’ve seen is to elevate Saudi Arabia from an Affiliate to an Associate member.
The scheduled press conference at the end has reportedly been cancelled. If this meeting is going to herald the new era of cricket with divisions, promotion, relegation and expansion this seems a strange way to go about it. There is a video on the ICC website of them wearing their tartan trousers though so that’s nice.
Doesn’t look like there is going to be anything of substance decided:
http://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/80965/opposition-over-test-shake-up-disappointing-says-afghanistan-ceo
Nothing of substance confirmed:
http://www.icc-cricket.com/news/2016/media-releases/95256/icc-annual-conference-concludes-in-edinburgh
Reform of DRS agreed, new system for calling new balls going to be trialed and pretty much everything else kicked down the road until October.
Thanks for the links Simon. It’s not surprising that the team’s likely to be in danger of relegation are opposed to 2 divisions. We’ll just have to see what happens. Hopefully they’ll be out voted, although India’s apparent reluctance is worrying.
Hey, very nice site. I came across this on Google, and I am stoked that I did. I will definitely be coming back here more often. Wish I could add to the conversation and bring a bit more to the table, but am just taking in as much info as I can at the moment. Thanks for sharing.
RCL T20 Matches
Keep Posting:)