abunchofballs

England lost the toss and were made to bowl first. It turned out to be a good loss as they wiped Sri Lanka out for only 188 runs, with Matthew Hoggard taking four wickets. He celebrated the first with the clichéd rock-the-baby move; unfortunately not using the much more entertaining Monty Panesar freak out. We did get to see said freak out three times, as Monty helped break the home side whilst the remaining three wickets went to Sidebottom, Anderson and a run out, respectively.

The England batsmen response got off to a shaky start with Alistair Cook falling for a duck after just three balls, but Ian Bell and skipper Michael Vaughan steadied the ship and managing to end the day with 49 on the scoreboard.

The main mutterings before the series began was about when Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan would break Shane Warne’s Test wickets record. Muralitharan probably will get the five needed wickets in this first match, but the record could be the only plus for the locals if the series continues in the current vein.

Before the series began I was leaning towards a draw, as I favour it for any three-match test in the sub-continent but England may just pleasantly surprise me. It would make a very nice change and a great pre-Christmas present, although as this is England I’m not allowing myself to count any chickens.

Free-range nor battery.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 3:57 pm and is filed under sri lanka-england 2007, cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.