1st test, 1st half
Now half way through the first test, with NZ about 100 runs short of the follow on target, 7 wickets in hand. Things not disastrous, touch wood.
Sri Lanka scoring 450 in the first innings certainly puts them ahead and well on the road to a victory.
This is disappointing for New Zealand, but I am getting the feeling that NZ is being judged quite harshly, due it would seem to the low expectations for the team. (If you want to see how low expectations are, check out the first picks in the Sportsfreak tipping competition. Of eight pundits, only one is not picking a whitewash to Sri Lanka. That one is me of course.)
Really, any decent team should score 450 every now and then. It’s not a ridiculously high total and similar scores have been scored at Galle in the last few years, 499/8 two years ago for example.
So what’s my point? Perhaps just that things are not as terrible as the doom-sayers are making out. We should still fancy our chances against Bangladesh later in the season.
August 20th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
273-8, Not good but we should still get a draw out of this unless it takes spin on the last day. An interesting finish anyway!
August 21st, 2009 at 8:06 am
273-8, Not good but we should still get a draw out of this unless it takes spin on the last day. An interesting finish anyway!
That’s pretty optimistic Bats. If it wasn’t for the rain I’d say that saving the test was impossible. The collapse from 150/3 when I wrote my post to 281/8 has pretty much invalidated my post.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:02 am
We might sneak another 20 runs tonight, but end up 150 behind. Sri Lanka to put on 200-250 and leave us to chase 350-400 with maybe an hour to play tonight.
I guess we will have to bat out 3.5 sessions to get the draw.
I didnt think facing 220 deliveries and going nowhere helped the cause either.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:23 pm
That’s how Tim Mac bats though; no issue with that. But why Jesse tried to copy him was a bit baffling.
It’ll be a good testicular test of Kumar’s captaincy to see when he declares today. Given the likelihood of 2 more shortened days he might want to do it close to tea.