England's Summer of Cricket against Sri Lanka and India

[Chazza]

Going to run out of overs.

[captainfog]

Absolute snoozefest. Typical Test match in this country. We want to see contests, not 5 days of batting practice.

[Chazza]

18 balls left 2 wickets to get.

[captainfog]

18 balls and 2 wickets to get.....

[captainfog]

What an exciting end to the game. Fair play to the bowlers, great effort on a flat pitch.

[PTP]

Wicket

5 balls left 1 wicket needed

[PTP]

Boom looks plumb

[PTP]

Nooooo unbelievable inside edge hahaha one ball left

[PTP]

Gutted great end

[Chris]

Shame that. Cook is a clueless pussy.

[captainfog]

I was literally screaming in celebration when that lbw was given and then again when I thought the edge had carried on the last ball. Great stuff.

[captainfog]

Cook messed up again. Too conservative with the declaration. We also lost 6 overs through our slow over rate on day 3.

[Buzzo]

If he'd put them in for 5-10 overs last night, and attacked a bit earlier today that was a win for the taking.

[captainfog]

If he'd put them in for 5-10 overs last night, and attacked a bit earlier today that was a win for the taking.

On reflection I think hindsight is a wonderful thing and I totally understand the decision to bat on. The wicket was really flat and the Sri Lankans have some fantastic batsmen and leaving them with 350 to get in a day and a bit could have spectacularly backfired.

What I think is stupid though is we lost 6 overs with our slow over rate in the first innings. Another 6 overs and we probably would have won today. Drives me mad. The ICC need to impose a run penalty or something to get teams to hurry up. The paying public lost 17 overs in this game and it happens time and time again. Test Cricket really doesn't help itself sometimes.

[Alex]

I get what you are saying, but with a few more overs the game wouldn't have finished like that (possibly)

So I guess it added drama. People prefer drama in sport to value for money dont they?