- England and Sri Lanka draw third Test as rain wins on final day
- Hosts win Test series 2-0; lead Super Series 10-2
- Donald Carr obituary
Right you are, that’s all from us here. Join us for the ODIs, which start at Trent Bridge on June 21. Sri Lanka meanwhile head to Ireland for a couple of ODIs at Malahide. Bye!
Rain at intervals throughout the morning had meant play was not possible until 1.20pm. Away to the west though, beyond the construction works of the new Warner stand, the darkest of a series of dark clouds were already gathering, and after three overs and four balls of the final day, the rain came down in sufficient torrents to leave even this ground, with the best drainage, with lakes on the outfield. The mopping was diligent and there was a further restart at 4.10pm, with 8.4 more overs bowled before the rain returned. Sri Lanka finished on 78 for one, Kusal Mendis putting an emphatic seal on the series by carting its last delivery, from Joe Root, into the Tavern stand for six. Dimuth Karunaratne was unbeaten on 37.
Real Mike Selvey’s full report here.
Back to the Test, we’re having an indoor Test presentation! The last time we had one of those gave us this cracking photo.
Jonny Bairstow is man of the match and man of the series – 199 runs in the match, 387 in the series at an average of 129. “Proving people wrong,” has motivated this obscene purple patch. England fans will hope he doesn’t lose too many detractors after this performance.
The real quiz
Hales and Root rested for potential Super Series decider. Big gamble.
England have announced the squads for the T20 and ODI series with Sri Lanka. The T20 squad sees the uncapped Tymal Mills and Dawid Malan selected for duty. Mills has been bowling rockets in the T20 Blast, while Malan has evolved into a brilliant top-order white ball player. Moeen Ali, Alex Hales and Joe Root are all rested from the T20i and all-rounder Ben Stokes is ruled out with a knee injury.
ODI Squad
As expected, the rains have won. The umpires have decided that the outfield is too wet and that life is too short to be waiting around for handshakes at 5:45pm.
Match drawn. England win the series 2-0 and Sri Lanka get on the board in the Super Series 10-2...as you were
While we wait, here’s a great video on the rise of Rangana Herath...
WATCH: One of sport's good guys, and recent inductee to the 300 wicket club Rangana Herath on his remarkable careerhttps://t.co/Kgu0WAdpk7
Mendis slog sweeps Root for six into the Mound Stand and we get the rain we craved.
Robert Wilson emails in to boast about going to see some association football in Lyon on Thursday and also seek some etiquette advice: “What does one do during the lunch and tea intervals for example. Do you think they’d mind if I brought a hamper and champers? What should I wear?” Should be fine Robbo. While in England they’d confiscate the contents of your hamper, in France they just silently judge it.
24th over: Sri Lanka 72-1 (Karunaratne 37, Mendis 11) The light has faded enough for Cook to have to turn to Moeen Ali and Joe Root. Ali takes the first of the spin overs, replacing Anderson. Everyone wants it to rain.
23rd over: Sri Lanka 72-1 (Karunaratne 37, Mendis 11) The ball hits Kusal Mendis’ shoulder and Broad convinces Cook to review. Cook obliges in the manner of a father who nagged to within an inch of his life. “Yes, fine, dress up as a Ninja Turtle for nana’s funeral.” It’s not out, by the way.
“I’d also be tempted to put 11 players round the bat in this situation,” says professional maverick Ali Robertson. “The only argument that I can see against it is that it would allow the batsman to hit wildly, reasonably certain that if they connected they’d be safe. Whether that’s valid or not we can agree that Cook’s being too cautious here.”
Poor throw from James Vince - he should learn from the Marseille hooligans who can hit a gendarme with a table from that distance @Vitu_E
22nd over: Sri Lanka 68-1 (Karunaratne 37, Mendis 7) Run out chance as Karunaratne dabs to point, Hales saves from gully while Vince runs around and has a shy at the stumps. Bairstow is unable to get up to the stumps in time to remove the bails, thus reopening the debate around his merits as a keeper. Karunaratne clips through midwicket for four. 11 off the over!
21st over: Sri Lanka 56-1 (Karunaratne 32, Mendis 3): Jonny Baistow with a good take down the leg side as a Broad delivery hits and crack and shoots off down the leg side, finally putting to bed the debate around his merits as a keeper.
20th over: Sri Lanka 56-1 (Karunaratne 32, Mendis 3) A lot of noise in the field. One of the few benefits of a sparsely filled ground is how clearly you can hear the chat around the bat. Karunaratne plays out a very loud maiden.
19th over: Sri Lanka 56-1 (Karunaratne 32, Menids 3): Yeeeesh – Mendis decides to try smash Broad back down the ground, first ball. Good contact, but it’s too close to Broad, who sticks out a hand to stop it. No chance of a caught and bowled, but an interesting choice of shot nonetheless.
“I can never understand why, in situations like this when runs are completely irrelevant, captains (and I mean all captains adventurous and cautious, everywhere in the world) don’t go on all-out attack.” Nor can I, David Keech. “That is no defensive mid-on, short legs in, nobody on the boundary etc. What am I missing here?”
18th over: Sri Lanka 56-1 (Karunaratne 32, Mendis 3): Four for Karunaratne as he dabs down a rising delivery from Anderson and convinces it to race to the third man fence. An appeal from Anderson as he gets the inswinger to hit Mendis in front of leg stump, but the ball was only stopped from racing well past the of stump.
17th over: Sri Lanka 47-1 (Karunaratne 28, Mendis 0): With this use of his handy weather app – “Home and Dry” – Martin Farncombe reckons we’ll have stopped by 5pm. Peculiarly, just three slips for Broad, despite the fact that Sri Lanka need 317 from 46 overs – just under seven an over. Two from the over and already Sri Lanka are well behind the run rate. Need to start getting creative, like #UNIVERSECHEF last night...
Shot of the day yesterday? #ENGvSL#InvestecTesthttps://t.co/UL9C20Rz3q
16th over: Sri Lanka 45-1 (Karunaratne 27, Mendis 0): Anderson dots an “i” crosses a “t” to finish the over he’d already started at 1:30pm. Kusal Mendis finally faces up after walking out after the dismissal of Kaushal Silva.
As play is about to start, it’s time for me to hand over to Vish. Thanks for reading, all three of you.
Among those atLord’s is Steven Lynch of Wisden, probably the best person in the world to have on your side in a pub quiz. He knows Lord’s well, having begun his career as an administrator with MCC (his career in journalism began when he won the Wisden Cricket Monthly Christmas quiz three years running, so they thought they’d better sign him up). We were just chatting on Facebook and he murmured, “Interesting cloud coming down the Jubilee Line from Swiss Cottage.” When Steven says something is interesting, it means you’d better watch out.
Play will resume at 4.10pm. Thank the Thomas Lord for the super-soppers.
Meanwhile Spain have scored against the Czech Republic, so Jimmy Anderson’s peach of an inswinger to Kaushal Silva is no longer the moment of the day.
England’s batting has become a weirdly mixed bag. The opening partnership, a source of angst ever since Andrew Strauss retired, is getting better, but the middle order is a mess. It relies not so much heavily as utterly on Joe Root, whose scores in this series have been 0, 80, 3 and 4. Starting a Test summer with Hales, Compton and Vince in the top five was unduly welcoming to a green Sri Lankan attack. England would surely have made more runs in this series if they’d had Ian Bell on board, retrograde as that might have been, or if they’d taken Mike Atherton’s advice and brought back Jos Buttler. The longer Jonny Bairstow bats, the more likely he is to drop a catch. Quite understandably.
A glimmer of hope from our go-to weatherman.
Brighter at Lord's now. Covers coming off (yet again).
The next inspection will be at 3.45. So, if the series is petering out in the puddles, what do we take from it? Who’s up, who’s down? Sri Lanka were horribly undercooked but got better; they were unlucky with the umpiring, but also hopeless at reviewing, which is a vital skill.They’ve been a likeable team, showing good spirit since the second innings at Chester-le-Street. If, as a South Asian cricketer, you can find your feet in the far north, you should be fine.
England have been good rather than great. Alex Hales has arrived, Jonny Bairstow has more than arrived. James Vince hasn’t gone anywhere yet. Nick Compton, alas, is probably in the departure lounge, though he can hold his head higher than the anonymous figure who briefed the press on Thursday, saying that Compton’s place was going to Scott Borthwick.
Just batting in the rain.
@Vitu_E@TimdeLisle impromptu game of cricket at lords pic.twitter.com/1EkdapZTZG
If you prefer your sport to involve something actually happening, you might be better off over here with Rob Smyth, fresh from his nomination for chair of the Scott Trust. If not, stick with us for conversation, rueful attempts at humour, and the odd flurry of excitement as the umpires potter out to inspect the paddyfield. It’s basically TMS without any distinguished ex-players saying “as I was saying”.
Inspection at 3.15. This is Tim again, taking over from Vish, with hopes not running all that high. So far today we’ve had 13 runs, one wicket and one monsoon.Vish got the runs and the wicket.
Bleuch!
inspection at 3.15 but more rain on its way. Suspect this lot will prove terminal.
From “apocalypse” to “filthy blanket”: it’s dry for now though so they’ll mop, sop and blop up until it’s dry, schedule play for 20 minutes later only for the rains to hit in 19.
It's dry right now at Lord's, but there's a filthy blanket of darkness approaching over the old Warner Stand
2:30pm inspection. Where we are, the rain has stopped and there is a bit of blue sky peeking through. Whether that will allow enough time for England to take nine wickets is another matter. Gut feel: there will be play, just not enough.
There will be a few of you who know exactly what James Walsh is talking about:
@Vitu_E For some reason Shane Warne's showing off his painting of 'the ultimate party' on Sky. Features Warne, Mohammad Ali & Angelina Jolie
It’s really wanging it down at Lord’s. From my desk at Guardian HQ, all I can see out the window is a thick grey sky. Considering we’re about three miles away from St John’s Wood and the weather has been coming from us, it’s all a bit grim. Anyway, here’s that bit of Jimmy Delight from earlier
WATCH: Class from @jimmy9. After a series of away swingers, one comes up the hill and Silva is gone LBW #ENGvSLhttps://t.co/Ds1v0IRoRt
Just five minutes ago, Mike Selvey tweeted this:
Armageddon on its way from over the Warner stand.
WICKET! Anderson traps Silva (16) lbw with an in-swinger - before the rain starts to fall! https://t.co/2eLM1u91tmpic.twitter.com/kHZtOVkDAg
Silva finally has a dismissal in England that isn’t caught behind! He’ll be pleased to get that monkey off his back. Left a straight one, mind – Anderson does him with the inswinger.
15th over: Sri Lanka 44-0 (Karunaratne 26, Silva 16): Broad around the wicket to Karunaratne, who looks to play positive and skews a drive beyond the slips for four. A better shot gets him one. Silly ol’ game.
“Where’s the fun in having one of the world’s best batsmen in your ranks, the team’s fulcrum, a little legend, god-we’d-have-been-awful-without-him, etc. etc. if you can’t try to find fault?” asks Kieron Shaw. “I’ve been comparing Root, Smith and Williamson’s scores (upon fall of wicket) over the last 24 months.” He’s attached graphs too, by the way.
14th over: Sri Lanka 39-0 (Karunaratne 21, Silva 16)
Silva has decided to bat outside his crease to Anderson. An away swinging delivery, slightly off line, is hit just out of the reach of Moeen Ali at point for four. An awkward delivery squares Silva up and hits him on the arm. The final delivery leaves him late and beats the outside edge. Better, Jimothy.
13th over: Sri Lanka 34-0 (Karunaratne 20, Silva 12) I feel a bit like Dave Nugent, here. After Tim De Lisle puts in the hard yards this morning, holding the fort and conversation with no cricket to work with, in I come, Pret coffee at the ready, to steal the glory of actual play. Stuart Broad finds the edge of Kaushal Silva’s bat but the ball falls just short of Alastair Cook at first slip. Cloud cover, lights, a newish ball – prime bowling conditions, these.
Afternoon everyone. Vish here, warming up with a medicine ball and bowling an over’s worth of looseners on a practice strip. The outfield is just getting a touch-up and play should be allowed to begin for the day at 1:20pm. I’ve not looked at the forecast for later. Blazing sunshine, presumably?
@TimdeLisle If you're doing songs for passengers https://t.co/VvLhTbohBo
That’s me done for the moment, with not a run added to the total, or even a ball bowled, but still, we’ve sorted out the future of Test cricket. Or gone back to it.
Vish has slipped into the seat next to me, like the senior pilot coming back to the cockpit to land the plane. Thanks for reading.
Singing in the rain. We’ve had Iggy and Elvis, and Janet Stevens reckons it’s time for some Ella. “This is to take away the taste of the vocal on the Ambrose recording kindly supplied earlier in the match by John Starbuck,” she says, tartly. “And thanks to Pete Salmon for the Duckworth Lewis Method Beiderbecke reference, very useful. Finally, Rob Smyth for Chair of the Scott Trust certainly has my vote, now that the original appointment has, very properly, decided to concentrate his energies on being principal of my alma mater – definitely a full-time job. Keep smiling.”
Another retro thought, from George Davidson. “When a Test is over in 3 or 4 days, I don’t know why the players can’t come back out and entertain us with a Twenty20 or a Ten10. Some folks might just prefer a refund, but they would know what to expect when buying their ticket. A 3-day test cannot be so exhausting that the players can’t pull their pads on and have a go at a short-form match. As it would not have any real meaning, it could be a chance for a bit of an exhibition match with extravagant shots. Cricket is so disrespectful of its spectators, though I don’t expect there to be any changes that would benefit those of us daft enough to shell out £95 to watch the rain fall.”
Maybe the problem is one of geography.
@TimdeLisle How about off one off test in Los Angeles? pic.twitter.com/cHWbDZq1Q6
What to do about rain-ruined Tests? “Bring back the rest day,” urges Ian Belford, “but have it moveable to cater for the weather. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I’ve always liked the concept of a game that not only has meal breaks, but also gives players an opportunity to knock off for a day of sightseeing midway through.” It’s a lovely idea. But you might have to make the sightseeing mandatory, or ban them from the golf course.
Lunch has had the inevitable effect. Say what you like about The Sun, it’s good on the rain.
Cricket is a strange game. No play all morning but the rain has stopped and they could be playing now. But they are having lunch!
My masterplan for four-day Tests with a fifth day in reserve is already coming under fire. “I’d see that as an erosion of the Test idea,” says Howard Vaan. “How about having a reserve day for five-day Tests?” Sounds even better, but it’s hard to see it coming to pass in a schedule that is squeezed by the spread of Twenty20.
Lord’s is famous for its lunches, among other things.The players will be choosing from a menu much like this.
So this is lunch menu for the players today - what would you pick? #EngvIndpic.twitter.com/VZVMa1kdog
And the verdict is... an early lunch, at 12.30, so the earliest we’ll see a ball bowled is 1.10. All very English.
Inspection at 12.20pm, which is any minute now. As wonderful as Test cricket often is, there is something deranged about a sport that can be defeated by the weather. Lately there’s been some talk of switching Tests to four longer days instead of the traditional five, and if that goes ahead, the fifth should be used as a reserve day. And any match that is wiped out by the weather gods should be rearranged, within reason. Or is that pie in the sky?
The first nomination is in for a new chair of the Scott Trust.
@TimdeLisle Re the job, I nominate the great Rob Smyth!
Spoke too soon – drizzle is falling. Such a good word, you can almost forgive it for what it signifies.
Meanwhile there’s a job going at The Guardian. Quite a big one: chair of the Scott Trust. It should surely go to an OBO reader.
The rain has stopped! The covers are being removed! That’s the trouble with being a sports lover – it’s hard to contain your excitement.
There’s always someone worse off than you.
@TimdeLisle Gripping? Try watching said cricket match, reading OBO and listening to TMS eating a depressing breakfast of supermarket sushi..
A little less action, a little more conversation. “In fairness to the passengers,” says Robin Hazlehurst, “at least Compton and Vince are unlikely to pick up MBEs for not contributing an awful lot to the series victory.” Very true. I wonder how Paul Collingwood felt when he saw Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad get their gongs the other day. It took Cook 128 Tests to land an MBE, Broad 93, and Colly three. Though, to be fair, he probably earned it restrospectively.
#SoveryBritish. “MCC does not anticipate a sell-out crowd...”
Still waiting for some action at Lord’s. Charlie Bird picks up on my point about Nick Compton and James Vince, which wasn’t meant unkindly – anyone who has ever played team sport knows how it feels to be the person who contributed hardly anything to the win.
@TimdeLisle Passenger is wee bit harsh https://t.co/wwTHOCguBG
If you’re near a telly, switch on. Sky are giving another airing to Shane Warne and Mahela Jayawardene’s legspin masterclass, how to bowl it and how to play it, which is already halfway to classic status.
Play was due to start at 11.30am, in about 15 minutes, if the rain didn’t return, which it duly has. A whiff of the 1970s, when 11.30 was the regular start time – though in that far-off era, Monday would only have been the fourth day of the Test, as Sunday was strictly a rest day.
These days, a fifth day is a rare bird.
A Test match in England has reached the fifth day for the first time in more than a year (June 2, 2015, Eng v NZ at Headingley)
The covers are coming off. We need the gloves to follow suit, with Anderson or Broad getting fired up and having one of their hot spells. They hardly ever have one together, but then they don’t need to. One of the quirks of cricket is how few players it takes to win a match. The first Test was won by Hales, Bairstow and Anderson, with a little help from Finn; the second by Hales, Root, Bairstow, Moeen, Anderson, Broad and Woakes, with Cook turning up to claim his 10K. In this match, the England seamers have worked as a team, but all the runs have been made by four people – Cook, Hales, Bairstow and Woakes. Nick Compton and James Vince are not the first cricketers to win a series without making a contribution.
Not to be outdone by Gary Naylor, Rob Wilson has a point to make. “Dear Tim, I do love the last day of a Lord’s Test match. No matter how sunny, glamorous or nailbiting, there’s always a faint tang of melancholy and a consciousness of the absurd brevity of life. It is, in fact, exactly the same as a champagne hangover.” I’ll have to take your word for that, Rob. But spot on about the melancholy.
Naylor has a point there. Reverse concessions: charge the pensioners more! This could catch on. The age group most likely to go the theatre is the 65-to-74-year-olds: shouldn’t they be subsidising the millennials, rather than the other way round? And Test crowds these days are not unlike theatre audiences, albeit with more alcohol and superhero costumes.
Umbrellas still up at Lord’s. This is my third day of OBO-ing, after years of reading and enjoying it. At the end of the second day, I was thinking, where is Gary Naylor? Has he retired? Been snapped up by TMS? Is he freezing me out because I’m the new kid in town and he’s the gnarly old pro? But then came the first tweet of the day.
£20 on gate, but £5 for over 65s and under 16s. Good - but over 65s have more money than 17-25 year olds and they're the future @TimdeLisle
As well as humidity, there’s a whiff of sadness in the air. This series only began to resemble a proper contest when it was too late. Sri Lanka without Sangakkara were like England’s footballers without Rooney in the last few minutes against Russia – gifted, attractive, but short of grit and nous. Jimmy Anderson ran rings round them, and England got away with a misfiring top order.
After being crowned the world no.1 bowler, Anderson will probably be Man of the Series too by tonight, though if I had a vote it would go to Jonny Bairstow, because a big hundred, in an English spring, is about equal to an eight-for. The bronze medal goes to Alex Hales, the first England player since Kenny Barrington to get three 80s in a series without reaching three figures. He shouldn’t be as bothered about that as he looked yesterday: in this series, he has arrived as a Test cricketer.
Morning everyone (RIP Richie). This game is nicely set up – a full 98 overs to go, England needing ten wickets for a rare whitewash, and Sri Lanka chasing 330 for a rousing consolation victory. There’s just one pooper at the party: London’s weather. The covers are on, the air is dank, the forecast is abysmal from noon to 3pm. So it looks as if England have half a day to bowl Sri Lanka out. In the first half of the series, as Alastair Cook should be reminding them, that proved ample.
Tim will be here soon enough. In the meantime, read Vic Marks on Alex Hales’ nervous disposition:
Related: Alex Hales stuck in nervous 90s as wait for England Test century goes on
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