England Vs Sri lanka.

With the first test about a month away i would like to know what you think about, Englands chances, bowling line up, who will replace Collingwood and anything thing else you can think of.

I think England will win the series 2-0, Sri Lanka have to many bits and pieces cricketers. I think the bowling line up should be horses for courses it seemed to of worked in Aus, Anderson and Swann as the main stay. I think Morgan will replace Collingwood he is more talented than Hildrith and Flower seems to like the more talented individuals.

England should win, but knowing them they'll make it hard on themselves. I think that England's attack will be the stronger regardless of who they pick, especially in English conditions. It's great to have a few good options. The Sri Lanka batting may be slightly better, but again home conditions will neutralise that to a certain extent, so I would expect that superior bowling will see England home, especially if Anderson bowls well.
I agree Morgan would look to be the favourite to replace Collingwood. You have to give talent a chance to shine, and if he comes good he could be in the team for a long time.

however how will Morgan playing IPL rather than 4 day cricket effect his chances?

I doubt it. It should, but I think Pietersen played IPL a couple of years ago and went straight back into the test team then, so it probably won't if they favour him.

i want rashid in the side and i think we will lose the series but it will be close

pietersen was already an established test player before he played IPL , so comparing his selection post-IPL to morgan's is irrelevant

personally i think morgan has made the wrong decision to play IPL this year , he has played less than 10 games of first class cricket in the last 2 years and despite having shown he has the right attitude and temprament for test cricket imo , is still unproven in the longer format. he has plenty of years ahead of him to play IPL and make money, if he does get collingwood's test spot and fails through lack of proper preparation then he may not get another chance with all the other prospective batsmen lining up behind him.

as far as the series itself i cant see england lsoing a test, sri lanka's bowling looks very weak. i dont agree that their overall batting line-up is better than england but they do arguably have the two best batsmen in jayawardene and sangakkara. agin tho their preparation is not going to be ideal as they wont arrive in time to play in the warm-up matches due to playing in the IPL until 20th May. so they will go into the first test cold.

i would expect england to be able to win this series comfortably and set themselves up for the tougher series against india later in the year.

Sri Lanka's batting is streets ahead of England's.

Pietersen is a spent force. Cook is weak vs anything that swings or seams. Barring Trott, who's purple patch will end sooner or later, the rest are average.

Sangakkara, Mahela, Thilian and Dilshan are seriously good.

If its sunny, can't see past a drawn series.

dilshan and samaraweera's records away from home are nowehere near as good as their home records , and none of those 4 have particularly good records in england. go have a look at dilshan's record in the last 12 months in tests, or a look at samaraweera outside sri lanka and india

last time sri lanka were here samaraweera managed an impressive 17 runs in the whole series. you really cant look at their records and say they are better than the england top 6 when such a high % of their runs were scored in the sub-continent

even if it is sunny you will still expect a fair amount of seam movement and bounce on early season pitches, especially from guys like broad and tremlett

saying cook is weak against anything that seams or swings , you could say that against almost any batsman in the world, and KP still has the ability to be as good as anyone. he just needs to get his head right

you said if its sunny you cant see past a drawn series , it would say the opposite, only way it will be a drawn series is if it rains.

rich1uk wrote:

saying cook is weak against anything that seams or swings , you could say that against almost any batsman in the world, and KP still has the ability to be as good as anyone. he just needs to get his head right

you said if its sunny you cant see past a drawn series , it would say the opposite, only way it will be a drawn series is if it rains.

To be honest, Cook scored a truck load of runs vs a mediocre Australian attack. He's weak vs spin and Randiv and Herath will be all over him.

Sorry what has KP done in recent times? Score 227 on a road in Oz, otherwise he's a walking wicket.

Underestimating Sri Lankans seamers is a big mistake.

yeah i am sure the england batsmen will be shaiking in their shoes at the prospect of facing the seamers in the sri lanka squad

sri lanka's strength is spin and early season wickets in england tend to not spin much

whereas the sri lankan batsmen will not be used to the type of bounce that tremlett and broad will get out of those same pitches

KP maybe hasn't been scoring runs but watching him bat over the winter he showed signs of getting back to his best form , he was also carrying that hernia injury for a large proportion of the winter, and has never really been fully fit since the achilles injury that led to him missing the end of the 2009 season.

the only 2 sri lankan batsman that are likely to be able to cope with english conditions are jayawardene and sangakkara and even then they cant carry the rest of the team al series long.