Saturday, Dec 13, 2003
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Cricket
By Ted Corbett
Sri Lanka 382 & 39 for one
Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumara Sangakkara, neither of who is afraid of a challenge, even walked off at the first offer of the light even though it seemed bright enough. On Saturday Sri Lanka should take further strides towards victory but nothing has happened in this match according to plan and it may have further surprises in store. Graham Thorpe made that true today with a fighting innings of 57 that encouraged the tail to keep the cross of St. George flying bravely above the scoreboard but this game may settle the series. Lloyd could not have made his intentions clearer. After hearing into the allegation that Nasser Hussain, the former England captain had sworn at Muttiah Muralitharan and called him a cheat and a chucker - which Lloyd decided was not proven - he said that he would not be lenient with anyone found guilty of a similar offence. It was his second threat of the day, delivered in rather more robust terms than he used in his chat to the two coaches before play. For all his avuncular appearance, rolling gait and beguiling Caribbean accent, Lloyd is also the match referee who stopped a World Cup semifinal in Kolkata and awarded the match to Sri Lanka. And, after a little prodding from ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed, he also banned Darren Lehmann for five matches for a racial remark. He ruled the unruly elements in the great West Indies teams with such a firm hand that his step up to match referee was natural. The other lesson of the day was obvious from the number of runs scored. If you schedule back-to-back Tests the chances are you will get backward cricket. It happened at Galle where Sri Lanka was unable to rustle up the energy to bowl England out in the final hour; and today, 24 hours after tempers frayed and tops blew, the downbeat play was almost unbearable. Both teams are tired after eight days' cricket in 11, knowing that they will have to repeat their efforts in the third Test with only two days' rest in between. Human nature being cautious, bowlers in particular have kept energy expenditure down and in this match all-out attack from batsmen on a pitch said to be full of runs has been a rare sight. After Paul Collingwood was brilliantly caught behind by Sangakkara — a rival to Junior Murray and Courtney Browne of West Indies as the untidiest Test wicketkeeper of the last ten years — Andrew Flintoff tried to get after Muralitharan but his two fours and a six were merely gestures and he got himself into such a mix that he drove the ball into his pads and saw it roll back on to his stumps. Chris Read, a tidier keeper who has shown no batting form yet, was given out lbw to a ball that pitched outside off. At 202 for six England stood to concede a first innings lead of 150. Instead Thorpe controlled Murali's striking power for four hours, dabbing the ball around and hitting only five fours in 57. His defence against the spinning ball was in the master class, his judgement impeccable and his strength after a minor Murali triumph a credit to his experience; but after Collingwood there was no class batsman to help. England had a spell in which no run was scored for 43 balls but when Thorpe hit Murali superbly through the covers to the boundary he was out next ball. It needed a firm rearguard action to keep the Sri Lanka lead down to 88. Gareth Batty dug in for 166 minutes so that now every one of the England tail-enders has made a heroic effort to compensate for the failures of supposedly superior batsmen. They cannot afford to neglect their batting practice now for there is bound to be another crisis in the middle order shortly.
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