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Not sure your first sentence makes sense, or that England could really be called a team in transition. Anyway, an enjoyable read as ever apart from that Tom.

Broad has always leaked runs. He needs to compensate with important wickets or runs with the bat - failing that, his place automatically comes under threat in my eyes.

I think it's a bit harsh to call today's performance a 'struggle'. A chief executive pitch, combined with disciplined Sri Lankan batting led to half a day of tough test cricket, as it should be. Only Broad seemed in bad form with the ball, which is to be expected considering he is just back from injury and hasn't bowled enough but Jimmy bowled excellently, beating the bat on a number of occasions and in my opinion should have had more than one wicket to show for his toils today.

This post has been ill-thought out.
We lost most of the Day to the rain and even after that went, weher conditions going to ideal? Not after a rain delay as such.
Plus, its Day 1 of a Long Summer of Cricket so just to pin-point out bits is really silly after 1 Day.

Come back to us at the end of the series before nit-picking out things in just 4 and bit hours of Cricket we got today.

I think Cardiff is a poor choice of venue. How many fans were there today?

Sangakkara was not out!!

Man-alive!!

Reading this blog you would be excused by thinking that we have already lost this series. It was - to be honest - a dull day with rain being the big player. But what where we expecting against a brilliant batting line up? All players on both teams haven't played test cricket in a couple of months so both teams where going to feel there way in.

Lets start chopping head and pointing fingers after the series if we loss.

Day 1 of 15 (35 if you include the India series). So rash judgements can't be made about any player, like mentioned Borad always leaks runs but he also has a habit of taking vital wickets. More importantly how often is 133-2 a terrible score for either side? Yes England would prefer two more wickets to be in control but that can happen still as early wickets do happen. Neither is Sri Lanka in cruise control the strike rates elude to that. All that's happened in this game is Sri Lankan's haven't ran away with their scoring rate and the England bowlers haven't forced a top-order collapse. Very much in the balance and still 4 days to go.

What are people opinions of the Sangakkara dismissal? Mine is it's proof DRS works clear sound and very faint hotspot, it took a second look but you can quite clearly see the mark where the ball passed after the shot has been fully played.

I wouldn't slate the article, don't think he's too pessimistic, just saying that there are some hard weeks/months ahead this summer and it's back to reality after the celebrations of an ashes series win down under.

A day of cricket affected so much by the rain meant that he didn't really have much else to write about, he has to write something. Plenty of cricket to be played (though this one will probably be a weather enforced draw). I think Tom is just drawing to the fact that with so many talented cricketers around waiting for their chance at international cricket, there are many players who will be constantly under pressure this summer. A healthy selection problem for English cricket at the moment.

Today was a good reason why we shouldn't really be playing Test cricket in May. Personally, I would never buy a ticket for Test cricket in May. Cardiff in May seems a 50-50 bet for rain.

sangakara was not out...do not try to steal a victory.. it wont b a fair result..

Sangakara WAS out there was a very faint hotspot, a noise which could of been nothing else, and sniko confirmed it.

Back to the topic, i see Fordyce is being as pessimistic as ever, do you not think Fordy that this could just be a case of the English guys not having much cricket under thier belts in the past couple months? they have all had extended breaks (much deserved) and they are playing similar to how the footballers will be playing in July, looking for form and rhythm. IE it has a bit of pre-season feel to it even though its already into the cricket season.

England can still win this test, but i think our bowlers will be fine come Lords, funny enough all the experts on Sky Sports were saying the exact same thing.

Excellent blog, Tom. Gives a real sense of the crossroads English Test cricket is now at. We've struggled in recent years to see any peak higher than the Ashes (2005 is case in point, an excellent run in Tests throttled in the drunken exuberance, mutual back slapping and loss of focus that followed). Can England now climb the extra yards to the summit? In football parlance we've secured a CL spot but not won the title.

KP and Morgan both need to shine, as does Broad. Collingwood will be missed in the field, which could cost vital wickets being held and even more vital momentum and pressure being lost in ket sessions, but Morgan should be able to eclipse Colly with the bat and put us in much stronger positions as a result.

Sri Lanka are talented and not to be under-estaimted. They also have nothing to lose here - dangerous combination.

Hopefully some fired up bowling on Friday morning will swing the Test England's way, especially with a batting line up that can arguably do a useful job all the way down to 9...

Cheers Forders!

Good blog Tom, cheers, although I agree with ArmchairGenius in the first comment on all counts.

Honours pretty much even at this stage -- too soon to draw any kind of conclusions yet. Sanghakkara was clearly out, though.

It is worth remembering how things went in the first innings of the first test in Brisbane, we certainly weren't looking like 3-1 winners at that stage. I'm also not sure that we have entirely laid to rest our reputation for starting slowly in both matches and series.
If we do get in amongst the Sri Lankans, an inexperienced team playing in foreign conditions, it will be interesting to see how much stomach they have for a fight.

One of 'those' days of test cricket in England. Unsettled conditions always seem to result in play which is boring and heavy going and Anderson's first three deliveries all wide of off-stump set the tone. Lack of atmosphere at the ground doesn't help either. Best part of the day was listening to the excellent Nasser Hussain's analysis during the breaks. Here's hoping for an improvement with a full day today.

First time I've seen the Glamorgan daffodil pattern in the seats of the main stand. Looks very odd and reminds me of a half destroyed Space Invaders base.

How can people say Broad needs to justify his place? Bowled Australia out two years ago to win the Oval test and last year got 169 at Lords! Think he's allowed a couple of innings where he may leak runs!

Tom's opening paragraph is surely saying the opposite of what he intends. England did struggle. But he says that those who thought that would happen have been "put right". Perhaps, he meant to say "have been shown to be right".

We wont win 3-0 and 4-0 in these series and I dont think anyone realistically thought we would, both Sri Lanka and India have some very fine batsmen. Neither side is full of top ranked bowlers so the chance of losing by those scores is even less likely, but we should be hoping to win both series, by however small a margin since its on home turf. That will be a good summer for us, Id take 1-0 and 2-1 gladly
Make no msitake though, both these teams will make it hard and there will be plenty of days spent toiling in the field.

@5 ... I think you'll find he was! hotspot picked up a small nick and so did snicko....and the fact that he went back to the pavilion pretty much makes it conclusive!

Where is the honesty gone in cricket? it's such a shame to see batsmet "hanging around" when they know they're gone and questioning valid catches etc... Not the game it used to be

Completely agree with no.7 133-2 is not too bad for either side. Granted England took those two wickets relatively late on but it doesn't matter if you take the 20th wicket with the last ball of the last day or the first ball of the third day really.

At this stage it's very finely poised though, obviously if Sri Lanka get a good stand together this morning then things could look pear shaped for England but a couple of quick wickets and England are in to what is a VERY long tail. In that respect SL are effectively 3 down because they only have 5 batsmen and a keeper batsman rather than 6 + a keeper!

Good article Tom.
Shame you didn't take the opportunity to lay into the selectors for their ineptness. Why, oh why was Broad picked if he's not in form?

From pedant's corner I'd like to point out a couple of problems with the penultimate sentence. First there are still four days left to play in this game so deciding it's going to be another draw is a bit premature. Secondly England lost to a lacklustre West Indies in the West Indies, in the series immediately prior to the 2009 Ashes we hammered them twice by massive margins.

I think the really interesting thing to arise from yesterday was the dismissal of Sangakarra. I think most people would agree that technology proved that there was a faint nick and that the decision was the correct one. However Sangakarra clearly looked miffed and from his body language I am convinced that he didn't believe that he had nicked it. Does this mean that the commonly held belief that you always know if you have nicked it or not is not actually true, and therefore have we done a disservice to people in the past by questioning why they haven't walked?

Comment 3 made me chuckle, "This post has been ill-thought out". Therefore I completely disregarded everything he had to say if FoxesofNuneaton didn't even believe what he was saying!

2 more before lunch and Sri Lanka get less than 300. No idea why yesterday was written as England toiling. The score was only 133-2 at the time.

With almost two days gone and plenty of batting yet to come from both sides, bowlers will need to come up with special stuff to capture the remaining 30 odd wickets. Best of luck to the two sides.


Dr. Cajetan Coelho

What's with the negative spin in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ coverage of these first two days? Its been 'England toil', 'England suffer' and 'England reduced to...'. Sri Lanka only getting 400 is far from a terrible result, it seems really dismissive of them and their talent to be reporting it in this way. Also, losing a single wicket is not a massive deal at all. This match is set fair, and England aren't even really behind in it at the moment. 400 is about a par score in Test cricket and England have knocked off a tenth of it and lost a tenth of their wickets. I think its time the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ coverage gave Sri Lanka a bit more respect and reported the game a bit more even handedly.

Please can someone ask Geoff Boycott very nicely to stop talking about himself even though , of course he is incredibly modest.