Day Five at Lords. Eng 335-7. Sri Lanka 127-3. Match Drawn
An anticlimactic fifth day at Lord’s came alive after lunch when Matt Prior smashed a window in the home dressing room after being run out by Ian Bell – covering the patrons below in glass. Both wicket-keeper and captain were forced to make a somewhat red-faced apology, and the pun maestros on Twitter went into overdrive. What a ‘pane’.
Various theories have emerged as to how and why the window broke. Some say Prior threw down his gloves, which hit a ball, which hit a cow, which yowled in agony at exactly the same pitch required to shatter glass. Others say Prior was just a bit of an idiot and broke the window with his bat in one petulant swish. Our working hypothesis is that Giles Clarke broke it. Why? Well, why not. It’s fun to blame the ECB for everything.
Talking of which, we learned the other day that the West Indies aren’t going to play a test at Lord’s next year because the ECB want to take test cricket around the shires. How disingenuous. They’re actually going to Cardiff again – obviously because the SWALEC is so lovely, looks nothing like a second division football ground, and isn’t one of the wettest grounds in the world.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that the England dressing room window was shattered by a disgruntled Windies player perched on top of a building with a sniper rifle. He must have been aiming for the ECB schedulers – recognisable by their outrageous blazers and boater hats – but missed by a mile. I’m betting it was Tino Best. Accuracy was never his forte.
Anyway, before I forget my primary task – which is to summarise events on the pitch at Lord’s – I’d better get back to the actual cricket. Basically, England batted far too long and didn’t leave enough time to bowl Sri Lanka out.
Setting a target of 350 was fair enough (although perhaps a tad overcautious) but it took us far too long to set the target. Alastair Cook was the primary culprit. We’re all glad that Cooky is scoring runs for fun – and I’ve got to say that his technique looked rock solid on Monday evening in tricky conditions – but the fact that he’d narrowly missed out on a Lord’s ton twice in recent history (in 2009 and in the first innings here) seemed to play on his mind. He scored just 26 runs in the morning session, which was a pretty dismal return in the circumstances.
After the first hour it became as obvious as smashed glass in an MCC member’s lap that Sri Lanka weren’t going to bowl England out. The clues were the scoreboard and the defensive fields. However, these things didn’t seem to register with England’s new ODI skipper, who showed all the attacking flair of Chris Tavare in his pomp.
After the game, Cook said that team instructions were to bat in an orthodox fashion until lunch (presumably so that we didn’t collapse in the quest for quick runs), and then accelerate while the bowler’s scotch eggs and caviar were digesting. The fact that our new ODI skipper was unable to see what was in front of him, and adapt his game plan accordingly, was more than a little worrying.
When the declaration finally came, England had a maximum of just 58 overs to bowl the opposition out. Hopes were high when Sangakkara guided a catch to point, in a shot that rivalled KP’s first innings dismissal for most dismal shot of the decade, but our bowlers were unable to capitalise on the early breakthrough. Sri Lanka finished on 127-3. The Lord’s pitch, which remained good for batting throughout the game, ultimately proved to be the winner.
Both teams can now look forward to the Rose Bowl’s first ever test match next week. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what happens to Matt Prior. When Matthew Hayden smashed a window at the SCG in 2003, he was fined approximately $2000 Australian dollars. When you add on inflation etc, that’s about five quid.
James Morgan
