Ill-applied and irrelevant (ironic given that it’s meant to make the individual fixtures more relevant) the Super Series score does at least give us a numerical overview of Sri Lanka’s tour of England. We know that it was an unsuccessful one for the tourists – but how unsuccessful? Well, it finished 20-4 to England, which even when you’ve never seen a points result before is quite obviously a shellacking.
Sri Lanka got half their points when it pissed it down at Lord’s, another for the one-day tie at Trent Bridge and then the clouds gifted them a fourth at Bristol. In effect, they earned one point and meteorology earned three.
They’re not a bad team. They just seem to be lacking the freakishly talented or freakishly unusual players they’ve often had in the past. It’s all been a bit of a slog. We don’t mean slog in a last-over-of-a-Twenty20 sense. We mean it in a long drive to London with ever-increasing volumes of traffic and you’re only going for some sort of pointless business meeting anyway sense – a wearying obligation from which you derive no pleasure and which is highly likely to prove unproductive too.
The captain, Angelo Mathews, has often seemed on the cusp of folding. He could carry on batting, bowling, fielding, captaining and occasionally popping off the field for hamstring treatment, but you’d also forgive him if he concluded life would be easier if he just climbed into a small drawer and pulled it closed.
England meet Pakistan all buoyant and chatty. Sri Lanka head home wishing they had more than a fortnight before the first Test against Australia.
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July 6, 2016 at 12:55 pm
Sorry to change the subject again, but something brilliant is happening
https://twitter.com/kentcricket/status/750658637064966145
July 6, 2016 at 1:57 pm
Tredwell’s fourth first-class hundred to put that in perspective.
Good rearguard though.
July 6, 2016 at 5:31 pm
Middlesex – you beauties!
Shove it, Yorkshire. Shove it, Chaac The Rain God.
Four actual days of cricket.
Middlesex are the best team in the whole world.
I can’t spake.
July 6, 2016 at 5:42 pm
All aboard the SS Eskinazi
July 6, 2016 at 6:53 pm
Have we got the county round-up for you guys tomorrow?
Have we?
We have, actually.
July 6, 2016 at 6:54 pm
To be clear, it’s the same as always. Don’t go expecting anything good or owt. We were simply informing you that there is one.
July 6, 2016 at 6:57 pm
I can hardly wait.
In fact, I’m going out in a moment, just to add emphasis to the point that I can hardly wait.
July 6, 2016 at 11:07 pm
I can wait. It’ll make the bit where it turns out that Middlesex are top all the sweeter.
Did someone say that Middlesex are top? Sorry, must have been me.
Oh, yes, so it was.
Middlesex are top.
July 7, 2016 at 8:22 am
Bet you can’t wait to see the table though.
July 7, 2016 at 10:09 am
Trembling a bit now.