Maharoof admits Sri Lanka struggled

Farveez Maharoof was left to reflect on a "tough day at the office" as Sri Lanka again toiled in the field on the fourth day of the first npower Test in Cardiff.

Jonathan Trott led the way for England with a superb 203, the highest Test score by an England player against Sri Lanka, with Alastair Cook and Ian Bell contributing 133 and 98 not out respectively as the home side reached 491 for five in their first innings, a lead of 91, by stumps.

The tourists have gained little reward from the 153 overs sent down over the past two days and, while he was quick to praise the performance of the England batsmen, Maharoof believes he and his team-mates needed to keep things a bit tighter.

The 26-year-old seamer said: "It was a tough day at the office, but credit to the English batsmen; they batted really well. Personally I am coming back into the side after a three-and-a-half year period and it was tough, but that is what Test cricket is all about.

"To be honest Trott batted really well, but we could have bowled much better to him.

"We could have been more consistent with our line and length, but you should not take anything away from his innings; he batted really well."

Maharoof, recalled to the Test side this week after his impressive recent form for Lancashire, had got rid of Cook, who edged a cut behind, not long after play began at 2:30pm following more rain in the Welsh capital.

Soon after, Rangana Herath trapped Kevin Pietersen in front for three - the 19th time in Tests he has fallen to a left-arm spinner.

While Maharoof admitted Sri Lanka had discussed that record, the seamer believes that it was the tactic of denying Pietersen easy scoring opportunities that ultimately paid dividends.

"It's normal with any batsman on a pitch where bowlers don't get much help that you want to keep the run scoring dry," he said. "That's what we did with him, we tried to stop him getting easy runs and he got out so it worked very well.

"It (left-arm spin) is something we talked about. Herath had bowled a massive spell of about 20 overs or something like that and he bowled very well.

"Most of our bowlers bowled very well and the only thing to work on is to be more consistent in the coming days."

The prospects of there being a result in Cardiff appear slim with three of the four days being blighted by rain.

More rain is forecast for tomorrow and the docile nature of the pitch would suggest that Sri Lanka will have little difficulty in securing a draw should they be asked to bat again, particularly as England will be down to three frontline bowlers due to James Anderson's side strain.

And Maharoof believes there is little that either side can take from this game ahead of next week's second Test at Lord's.

"A lot of time has been lost in this Test, there are two innings not completed, so you can't take much out of this Test because more than 100 overs have been lost," he added.

"As a team we batted really well to get 400 on that wicket in the first couple of days, we just need to be more disciplined and bowl in the right areas."

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England v Sri Lanka: first Test, day three report

"You wonder what will happen after a couple of months off," Cook said. "I got bogged down a bit but I was pleased with the patience I showed to get through.

"It’s an opportunity for Trotty and I to get big ones. There are still 200 overs left in this game, which is a hell of a lot of cricket to be played."

Trott did not begin his England career until he was older than Cook is now (26), so he has little hope of that slice of immortality: this century was his sixth. But Trott further cemented his second place in the all-time Test batting averages behind Sir Donald Bradman, lifting his 61 to 66 by the close.

At the outset, however, their partnership was hum-drum because the pitch demanded patience: it was fancy-dress day but not one for fancy batting. While Chennai powered along at ten runs per over in the final of the Indian Premier League, Cook and Trott brought up England’s 50 at exactly two an over.

But too many England teams of the past would have gone out, played big shots, and landed themselves in trouble. Neither Cook nor Trott was too proud or complacent, even after their heroics in Australia, to go back to the basics of blocking or leaving the accurate balls and dispatching the inaccurate ones.

Ajantha Mendis imposed most of the early restrictions, until the batsmen worked him out. His one wicket - Sri Lanka’s only wicket in the 70 overs that followed morning rain - was that of James Anderson who, although he has been declared unfit to bowl for the rest of this game, was able to visit the crease: ‘bat’ might be too strong a term, but he had done his duty as nightwatchman yet again by surviving overnight, the 16th time out of 16.

Anderson was caught by the finest slip-fielder Asia has produced. Well might Graeme Swann envy Mendis for having Mahela Jayawardene at slip, for among the nuts and bolts that England need to tighten before the Lord’s Test is their slip-fielding to spin.

Anderson is still unproven as England’s slip for Swann, and Andrew Strauss even more so: he got a wrist, not a hand, on the edge that Prasanna Jayawardena sent his way off Swann’s quicker ball.

Strauss had tasted the job in the Mohali Test of five years ago, dropped one off Monty Panesar and abandoned it. Such a specialist position is slip to a spinner - and such is England’s dearth - that Jayawardene should be invited to give a master-class at the Loughborough academy after this tour.

England’s acceleration was impressively smooth. Cook was first to put his foot down, after Mendis’s first six overs had cost three runs. As in Australia, he never contemplated the outside lane, or even fourth gear, just content to move from second to third and tootle along the whole day.

Human weakness surfaced momentarily. Two successive balls however from the slow left-armer Rangana Herath served to illustrate Cook’s great strength as well. First he missed an ambitious sweep, then he missed out on a full toss, driving straight to a fielder.

But thereafter it was like winter returning to the Northwest Passage. There was no way through Cook’s defence; and the dispatching of inaccurate balls was resumed.

Trott was no less patient and no less unflustered. Ordinary mortals would have become upset at such a slow start: after 30 balls the Master of Melbourne, and Baronet of Brisbane, had reached five. In one over from Mendis he had missed out on three short balls to the extent of scoring only a single.

It is Graham Gooch, England’s batting coach, who preaches from the ancient text saying only the next ball matters, and he could not have asked for two more ardent devotees than England’s second-wicket pair.

Trott cover-drove his 31st ball for four, and was away, beaver-busy, as insatiable for runs as Cook - no mean appetite - and almost caught his partner up.

Sri Lanka rang the changes but had no extreme pace to call on, and no extreme spin in the absence of Muttiah Muralitharan, and no extreme foxiness in the absence of Chaminda Vaas. After tea Herath resorted to bowling over the wicket outside the righthander’s legs: unspoken condemnation of the pitch’s lifelessness.

As everything is measured nowadays, perhaps pitches should also be. If more than two edges fail to carry off pace bowling to the wicketkeeper - as here - let a ground be banned from staging international cricket for a year: that would activate administrators intent on five-day blandness.

Test cricket is bringing its own extinction closer by being staged on such pitches. Or stage it at night, without floodlights.

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England v Sri Lanka: first Test, day one report

Ashes holders or not, English cricket can ill-afford to treat its patrons so shabbily. A large section of this ground has been closed off because the lack of ticket sales for this Test could not justify its opening, due to the extra stewarding costs that would incur.

You’d think therefore, that ensuring a fulsome experience for those that do turn up, would be a given, but while that was certainly the case here for the Ashes Test two years ago, it wasn’t yesterday.

Not that England gave the 7,000 spectators present much to be grateful for either after Sri Lanka ended the day 133-2, after winning the toss and electing to bat. With the covers in place until just before the start, they probably expected a seaming pitch and England’s Ashes winning bowlers to run rampant on it.

If the first transpired, to a degree, the devastating bowling did not, as evidenced by the 93-run opening partnership between Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana.

England’s pace bowlers failure to fire with the new ball was partly due to the blustery conditions, which make it devilishly difficult to find a rhythm, and partly because they have not bowled much in first-class cricket since the end of the Sydney Test last January.

This season James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who shared the new ball yesterday, have bowled 71 and 59 overs this season respectively, enough to get rid of any rust but not to find a good sheen.

As a result, they gave the impression that they were suffering from the tension from expectation that sometimes overcomes bowlers after their captain has won the toss and put a side in. Broad, especially, was off beam, and everyone who has seen him bowl for Nottinghamshire this season reckon he was undercooked for this Test.

How much his recent injuries contributed to that impression is not clear, but the vigour of youth is quickly replaced by something more circumspect once the knocks mount up.

Anderson did not leak as many runs in his opening salvo, he was equally guilty in allowing the left-handed Paranavitana leave more than he had to play.

Dilshan doesn’t leave many alone, however wide of off-stump they are. Judging from the unfettered way he reached fifty, his attacking philosophy has not been dulled by captaincy or the early season pitches in England.

Over the years the impression in some circles, false as it happens, has grown that he is little more than a dasher. But yesterday he passed 4,000 Test runs, becoming only the ninth Sri Lankan batsmen to reach the milestone.

Aggressive instincts can work against you though and no sooner had he acknowledged his fifty, than was bowled by Graeme Swann after bottom-edging a cut shot that would have been less risky had it limited its ambition to two runs rather than four.

The breakthrough achieved after Swann having give Andrew Strauss some belated control, England got the prized wicket of Kumar Sangakkara, though it needed some sharp eyes by the Rod Tucker, the TV umpire, after Aleem Dar had initially turned down Anderson’s appeal for an edge.

From every replay angle it looked as if Dar’s judgment had been right until Hotspot registered the merest dot of heat as the ball brushed against a few microns of bat.

Although Snicko, not yet used a as tool for such decisions, later confirmed it, Sangakkara has a big sponsor’s label on his bat that overlaps the edges. It wouldn’t be too far fetched, given the faintness of the contact, that he might have enjoyed a different outcome had it not been there.

His fall brought Mahela Jayawardene to join Paranavitana, now applying himself with resolve of an old hand on the sluggish pitch.

But Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s finest batsman of all time, did not look as assured as the tall left-hander, who passed 1000 Test runs en route to a watchful fifty made off 145 balls.

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England must prove themselves in India and Sri Lanka before laying claim to No1 spot says Muttiah Muralitharan

England return to the five-day game for the first time since their glorious Ashes tour, determined to earn the right to be called the best Test-playing nation on the planet.

But Muralitharan, who took 800 Test wickets before his retirement last year - and removed an English batsman 112 times - believes Andrew Strauss' men need to prove themselves in countries such as Sri Lanka and India before they can claim to be the best.

''I think they are good in England, but on the sub-continent they are not that good,'' he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

''They had a brilliant win in the Ashes but other than that they haven't done many great things in the sub-continent.

''They have to improve on the sub-continent, beating sides from the sub-continent in the sub-continent. They have to beat Sri Lanka and India in their conditions.''

Muralitharan has acknowledged the brilliance of England spinner Graeme Swann, but feels they will be unable to conquer the Asian sides on their own patch unless they can find a spin twin to go alongside the Nottinghamshire man.

''At the moment they have a lovely spinner in Graeme Swann, but they need one more spinner to be fighting in the sub-continent because it's difficult with one,'' he said.

''In the sub-continent you need two good spinners. I think Graeme Swann is world class but they need another one.''

Sri Lanka's attack is somewhat different to the one that last toured England in 2006, with Muralitharan having retired completely, and the dangerous Lasith Malinga also calling time on his Test career.

Malinga cited a need to preserve his fitness as the reason why he will only play one-day cricket in future, and Muralitharan has backed his former team-mate's decision.

He said: ''I think he was struggling for the last two or three years with his knee. He only played one match last year.

''He thinks his career is over in Test cricket and he can play one-day cricket until the next World Cup and I feel it's a wise choice for him to do that.

''I think his body would not take it because he had a very bad knee.''

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Sri Lanka police to investigate match-fixing allegations levelled by former captain Hashan Tillakaratne

Tillakaratne, who played 83 Tests and 200 one-dayers, claimed last week that Sri Lankan players had been involved in match-fixing since 1992.

“I have asked the inspector-general of police to investigate these claims and give a report to me,” Mahindananda Aluthgamage said on Monday.

“Match fixing is something which has been in this country over a period of time. This has spread like a cancer today,” Tillakaratne was quoted as saying by Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror newspaper on Friday.

“There were threats of this issue being exposed at various times. But it was kept quiet by giving money to various people.

“If the people who were responsible for that are listening to this, I state this today with great responsibility, I will shortly reveal the names of those responsible,” he said.

However on Sunday, Sri Lanka's World Cup captain Kumar Sangakkara challenged Tillakaratne to prove his allegations.

“Hashan has played the game for years and he’s captained Sri Lanka as well. So it’s interesting to see what he has to say and if he has anything more than allegations,” Sangakkara said.

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Sri Lanka cave in over idea of asking IPL to release players by 5 May

Sri Lanka's resolve to make a stand against the Indian Premier League and demand the return of their players by 5 May to prepare for the England tour has lasted all of 48 hours. The country's sports minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, adamant that the players must return, has now said he will "ask" the selectors to allow the Sri Lanka players in the IPL not to join the squad in London until 18 May.

In Sri Lanka, where what the government says goes, that is "ask" as in "tell". Sri Lanka's selectors will politely accede and Sri Lanka's IPL players will now join the rest of the squad about a week before the first Test. Speculation will abound over what threats, or indeed favours, have been discussed for such an about-turn. Aluthgamage is now quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying: "We have excellent relations with the government of India and the Indian cricket board. We don't want to upset or embarrass India."

Sri Lanka's opening tour game against Middlesex on 14 May will now have minimal purpose, but it is the final warm-up game against England Lions, which begins in Derby on 19 May, that Sri Lanka's top stars including Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene are now likely to be plunged into a day after reaching the UK. That match is only a week before the first Test starts in Cardiff.

Presumably the Sri Lankan selectors' threat to summon back Lasith Malinga from the IPL on 5 May so his fitness can be assessed for Test cricket, even though he has not been named in the Test squad to tour England, will now also be quietly dropped.

Aluthgamage denied that Indian pressure had influenced the change of heart. The decision to call back the players early was made by a new selection panel, headed by Duleep Mendis, in order to give the players time to prepare for the series. In a matter of days, Mendis has overstretched his hand.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has no intention of getting involved. If Sangakkara and company turn up in Cardiff half an hour before the start they will probably blame the traffic on the Severn Bridge.

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Sri Lanka name Tillakaratne Dilshan as captain for England tour

Tillakaratne Dilshan will take over from Kumar Sangakkara as the captain of Sri Lanka for next month's tour of England. Sangakkara decided to step down after the team lost to India in the World Cup final.

"We are proud to announce the appointment of Dilshan as the national captain in all three formats of the game for the tour of England," Sri Lanka Cricket said in a statement. "The national selectors have postponed the appointment of a vice-captain since the prospective candidates are nursing injuries and their availability for the forthcoming tour is still in question."

The 34-year-old Dilshan, who is an opening batsman, was the leading run-scorer in the World Cup with 500 at an average of 62.50. He has led Sri Lanka once before, on a tour of Zimbabwe in June last year, when his team won a one-day tri-series which also featured India, but this is the first time Dilshan has been picked to lead his country in a Test series.

The chairman of selectors, Duleep Mendis, said the tour squad would be selected after Dilshan returns from the Indian Premier League where he is representing Royal Challengers Bangalore. Sri Lanka have told all their IPL players to return home by 5 May to prepare for the tour.

The squad are due to leave for England on 10 May for a series of three Tests, five one-day internationals and one Twenty20 international. The first Test in Cardiff starts on 26 May.

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Cricket World Cup 2011: Kumar Sangakkara resigns as Sri Lanka captain after India defeat

Sangakkara said he told the national selectors that he would quit as one-day and Twenty20 captain with immediate effect, but offered to continue as Test captain on an interim basis if required.

"After careful consideration I have concluded that it is in the best long-term interests of the team that I step down now as national captain so that a new leader can be properly groomed for the 2015 World Cup," Sangakkara, 33, wrote to Sri Lanka Cricket.

"This was a decision I made prior to the World Cup. I will be 37 by the next World Cup and I cannot therefore be sure of my place in the team.

"It is better that Sri Lanka is led now by a player who will be at the peak of their career during that tournament."

Sangakkara, a fluent left-hand batsman and wicket-keeper, said he had no plans yet to retire as a player.

"I met with the selectors on Monday and I explained my reasons for my decision and I assured them of my fullest support in helping our new captain settle into the leadership," he wrote.

"In this regard, I have offered to continue as the Test captain for the forthcoming series with England, and possibly Australia, if the selectors believe this would help the new captain and aid the transition.

"I have no plans of retirement from international cricket at this stage and, subject to form and fitness, I would like to be considered for selection in all three formats of the game for the foreseeable future."

Sangakkara has scored 8,244 runs in 94 Tests at an average of 57.25 with 24 centuries. He also has 9,164 runs in 291 one-dayers with 11 hundreds.

Sangakkara said he had enjoyed his two-year stint as captain since taking over from Mahela Jayawardene in March, 2009.

"It has been a true honour and a great privilege to serve my country as captain during the past two years," he said.

"Although bitterly disappointed that we could not win the final, I am very proud of the performances of the team.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank my team-mates and the coaching staff for their hard work and support."

There was no immediate comment from Sri Lanka Cricket or the national selectors on Sangakkara's decision

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India v Sri Lanka: don't judge Mahendra Singh Dhoni on World Cup final outcome, says Kapil Dev

Trophy holder: Kapil Dev (middle) is the only Indian captain to win the Cricket World Cup Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Dhoni, having steered India past Pakistan in the semi-finals, is expected to complete the job with victory in Mumbai on Saturday to give the home side a second title to add to Kapil's 1983 breakthrough.

"I will never doubt Dhoni's credentials as a captain irrespective of the result of World Cup final," said Kapil.

"Lots of people believe that it's the ultimate result which will count but I believe otherwise.

"Look at Ricky Ponting. He has won two World Cups and after one bad World up he is out. That's not the way to judge a captain. So I would like that Dhoni not be judged by a win or loss. Instead, let's all wish him the very best."

Arjuna Ranatunga, who captained Sri Lanka to their only World Cup title in 1996, feels that both teams are evenly-matched.

"It will be a 50-50 game. I am slightly worried about our middle-order. The batsmen from No 5 to No 7 (Angelo Mathews, Thilan Samaraweera and Chamara Silva) haven't performed up to the mark. Also Mahela's (Jayawardene) form is a bit of worry for us," Ranatunga said.

"Those who believe that there won't be pressure are wrong. I myself have played a final and I know how it feels out there in the middle."

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Cricket World Cup 2011: Andrew Strauss must relinquish England one-day captaincy after Sri Lanka calamity

England can at last return home with no complaints. They lost to Ireland and Bangladesh after all. They were extremely fortunate not to have been reacquainting themselves with their much-missed home comforts some time ago.
The drawing board will doubtless be revisited yet again. England have lost captains after the last three World Cups (Alec Stewart in 1999, Nasser Hussain in 2003 and Michael Vaughan in 2007) and it would make sense now if Andrew Strauss were to step down as one-day skipper. It is a natural staging post.
To call for Strauss’s resignation should in no way be seen as a slight upon the job he has done. Considering the mess he inherited after the Kevin Pietersen/Peter Moores imbroglio in early 2009, Strauss has performed admirably. He has worked hard in stretching his own batting to its outer limits of positivity in attempting to lead a braver approach that began at the Champions Trophy in South Africa later that year. As justification he played the innings of his one-day life (158) in the tie with India in this tournament.
So it was disappointing, as well as a little unfitting, that his innings of just five from 19 balls on Saturday was so slow and stuttering, stifled by the clever Sri Lankan ploy of using the off-spin of Tillakaratne Dilshan to open, Strauss’s mind filled by thoughts of falling in the deep in the first over of the match to South Africa’s left-arm spinner Robin Peterson earlier in the tournament. The skipper had been straitjacketed, and it was a restraint from which England’s innings never wriggled.
There were rumours a fortnight ago that Strauss was considering stepping down. Quite naturally they were strongly rebuffed, but it is my understanding that they were not without credence. It is time to move on.
Strauss must, and of course will, continue as Test captain. And he will find the extra rest periods invaluable, just as he did when missing a tour of Bangladesh last March. Alastair Cook deputised then, in both ODIs and Tests, and he should take over now as ODI opener and captain, starting with the match against Sri Lanka at the Oval on June 28. Although the T20 at Bristol three days before could be interesting. Surely Paul Collingwood cannot continue as T20 captain, and Cook would seem a little miscast there. Kevin Pietersen anyone? But England would then have three captains.
England might have been mercilessly thumped on Saturday, but their winter had unravelled long ago, around the time when they should have been basking in Ashes glory and instead were traipsing around Australia playing two T20 internationals and seven one-day internationals. Simply for money. Simply to fill the coffers of Cricket Australia, and then those of the England and Wales Cricket Board in return.
It was around this time that team director Andy Flower decided that his players were running on empty and so needed some respite from the intense, but always carefully planned, training routines that have been the bedrock of some astounding success under his watch. As one significant result England’s fielding fell apart. And never really recovered.
Subsequently Flower has admitted this was a mistake. But it was not his mistake. It was the mistake of the administrators. International cricket should never be like county cricket where the speed on the treadmill has to be constantly altered (never on full blast) to allow for the chaotic schedule. International cricket must be full on, with eyeballs out. Anything less is short-changing the public.
But English cricket has long considered one-day cricket a second-class citizen, the poor relation to Test cricket. Mostly ODI series are, like this winter, tagged onto the fag end of long tours.
There was much joy recently when it was announced that the County Championship is to remain at 16 matches. But tragically missing from that press release was any mention of 50-over cricket. How on earth can we expect to win a 50-over World Cup when we do not play that length of game domestically? When last asked about this, ECB chairman Giles Clarke replied that South Africa, then No 1 in the world, do not play 50 overs domestically. But neither do they win anything. It is time for change.
With six rounds of the CB40 to be played by the end of May this year on pitches that are likely to seam, it is little surprise that England still cannot find an aggressive one-day opener to partner either Strauss or Cook.
The domestic standard is not as high as some think. Last year Matt Prior looked very useful when opening for Sussex (especially in Twenty20). But this winter he has let the England management down.
They made a courageous call to include him ahead of Steven Davies as opener/wicketkeeper, especially as ludicrous International Cricket Council regulations stipulated World Cup squads be confirmed after one match of England’s seven-match ODI series in Australia, but by the end of that series it was already obvious that it was a blunder.
Injuries to Pietersen and Stuart Broad have not helped, nor Samit Patel’s sloth (he has lost weight but Adil Rashid was preferred as replacement for Michael Yardy last week because Rashid has been playing this winter and Patel has not), but England came to rely too much on Jonathan Trott’s batting and, in an increasingly insipid attack, Graeme Swann’s bowling.
Trott still had his critics on Saturday after making 86 from 115 balls, but he is not the problem. He is the tournament’s leading run scorer! His role is clear; to bat through the innings. Others around him have faltered, transfixed by spin and with little idea how to assess a pitch and set a target.
Yet another World Cup calamity. There will be more unless attitudes alter.
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