Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Test cricket returns to England for the first time since the home side's surprisingly emphatic Ashes win last summer (and since their innings defeat at the Oval). And a return to Headingley , the venue of this summer's early season visitors, Sri Lanka"s thrilling 100 run win in 2014: won with a ball to spare when James Anderson looped a catch from a short ball from Shaminda Eranga to Rangana Herath at backward square leg from the second to last ball of the game; ending his 81 minutes of resistance, and rendering Moeen Ali's six hour ton futile.

Conditions will start cold and cloudy in Leeds on Thursday in yet another early season fixture for the northern venues (the second Test is in Durham!). There is some rain forecast over the weekend. Seam has been dominant in both games played at the home of Yorkshire this season, with Adil Rashid yet to take a wicket. In Headingley Tests this decade, only peak Graeme Swann has a five wicket bag among spinners, in 2013 against New Zealand. Runs can be scored, especially when the sun is shining. Alviro Peterson and the returning captain Angelo Mathews have big hundreds in the 2010s, and Alastair Cook got one of his two home Test hundreds in England since 2012, on this ground, also against New Zealand. But the sun won't be seen.

If Sri Lanka's triumph in England in 2014 went unforeseen, a win in this three match series would be as likely as Leicester City winning the Premier League. Stalwarts Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene have retired since 2014. Sri Lanka have struggled since, and were frequently shambolic in New Zealand where their batting was hopeless, particularly against the short ball, and their commitment could be questioned. What optimism they had was in Dushmantha Chameera, whose twelve wickets at 24 were rewards for striking pace and a dangerous short ball. But otherwise Mathews often resorted to bowling himself to gain control and Herath was ineffective. Their attack will be strengthened by the return of Shaminda Eranga from injury, back to the scene of his triumph in 2014.

Results for England have improved significantly under Trevor Bayliss, and a tough 2015 was generally successful. From the Ashes win, Adam Lyth, Ian Bell, Jos Buttler and Mark Wood have made way, together with (sadly) James Taylor from the winter tours. That's a lot of change in the batting, and here is England's flaw. In Tests over the last three year, only three batters average over 40 at home. Joe Root of course who averages (Route) 60.66. And Kevin Pietersen and the Zimbabwe born Gary Ballance, who are both unselectable, in differing ways. But the seam bowling is strong and should prevail. England go on rebuilding, but the foundations shouldn't be tested just yet.

Most of all, I hope for a competitive series. One sided home series are blighting the game and rumours of the Test cricket's demise are starting to spike again. England will prepare the slow seamers that won them back the Ashes. Hopefully Sri Lanka can exploit them too, and have some luck with the toss.

Players to watch: James Anderson. The England opening bowler has had to fend off suggestions that this will be his last year as an England player after his injury troubled 2015. He has started the season encouragingly at Lancashire and should thrive in the spring weather, but it'll be worth having a look at his often expressive body language, and for signs of early season fatigue.

And Dushmantha Chameera. He will be expensive, but his pace and cutting edge will be Sri Lanka's best chance of seizing a win. The tall 24 year old has a strike rate of 42 in his four Tests. England have been found out by the short ball before, and Chameera displayed a disconcerting bouncer against the Kiwis where he was the quickest bowler on either side.

Prasad is out the first Test. Crucial loss for them.

Good preview, Arthur.

James Vince and Jake Ball have got the call-up. Vince will slot in at 5 in place of Taylor, and is a long-anticipated call-up. Ball is a bit more of a surprise, but his early season form has been superb, and without Mark Wood or Mark Footitt available options were limited for England. It's likely he won't make the XI, but the final seamer slot will be between Finn and Ball. That sounds like a panto double-act to me...

I swear England do it on purpose, though - put the early season fixtures in northern venues. Especially when hosting sides from the tropics like West Indies or Sri Lanka - making them freeze in the field adds to England's advantage. It's surely no coincidence that only once in fifteen years (Sri Lanka 2014) have England lost the early season test series - it's almost invariably against the weaker team of the summer (this year maybe not) as the stronger team gets more tests and bigger venues, but also the conditions are harder for touring sides.

England's players have shown some early season strength - Cook, Root and Ali have been among the runs and Anderson has looked sharp. Meanwhile Prasad is out, Sri Lanka have lost their two best (ever) batsmen and have hardly been convincing in the warm-ups, and the conditions favour the English bowlers. In theory this should be a straightforward win for England, but being England nothing is ever certain. At the very least England's batting is brittle enough that there is always a scare - if England bat first on Thursday I wouldn't be at all surprised if Chameera bags a few early to give some early nerves.

The loss of Prasad feels like just the bad luck they could have done without.

got tickets for the game on sunday can't wait.

think Nasser taking crack lol.

Imagine if Alastair Cook was Indian. His face would be on every billboard. He would feature in every advert. He would be a global superstar and an iconic cricketer. His achievement in becoming the youngest man to reach 10,000 runs, which he must do in this series against Sri Lanka, makes him better at this stage of his career than even Sachin Tendulkar.

Statically Cook is the worst player to reach 10K.

He might be the youngest to reach the mark, but wasn't the quickest in terms of game time.
Sangakkara, Tendulkar and Lara took 195 innings to reach it.
in terms of games played Cook will be equal to Jayawardene.
and in terms of innings he would be 8th out of 12.

He should go past Sunil Gavaskar to be the highest scoring opening bat of all time, this summer. His average is the lowest of anyone to have made 9000 runs, by some way, which might explain why he isn't rated higher. He's been lucky with injury. Being the highest by a certain age doesn't really mean much, unless it's to look at runs made while still very young. Once you go past about 22, that isn't the case.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

But it's still a worthy achievement, and he's played some legendary innings. Maybe not globally celebrated innings like Jones in Chennai, or Lara in Bridgetown, but certainly within the context of England players.

I'm pretty underwhelmed by the approach of this series not least because there are less and less players in the England team to excite my interest, probably only Stokes, Broad and Anderson.

Joe?

Either I'm not watching much TV or there doesn't seem to be the same buzz around the new test season as usual.

Aidan11 wrote:Either I'm not watching much TV or there doesn't seem to be the same buzz around the new test season as usual.

It's only Sri Lanka. Probably no one cares. Pakistan should get a lot more coverage.

After an Ashes win and a win in South Africa, I might have expected a bit of feelgood interest. Not in the SL team, but in England at least.

England are 11/5 to win the series 3-0. Think that's a certainty unless there's rain around.

Might be bowl first tomorrow, with cloud around and some rain in the afternoon.

Finn's going to play.

England would have gone in with four seamers and no spinner in the nineties.