England vs Sri Lanka

you expecting snow?

Well Sri Lanka looked pretty awful against New Zealand but they seem to now be into the rhythm of the tournament now and just comfortably won what could have been a tricky game against Bangladesh.  All things being equal I think Sri Lanka would be comfortable favourites - over the last 7-8 years they've been one of the top one day sides in the world.  They have made 5 major finals and they came runners up in the last World Cup.  They are probably a bit over the hill now but they are extremely experienced and have more proven match winners than we do.  Their pedigree is way better than ours.  For some reason England cricket always tends to look down on Sri Lanka and assume they are one of the minor nations we should be beating - that doesn't really stack up because if you exclude their early years historically they have whupped us in one day cricket and run us pretty tight in Test Matches.  This summer losing to Sri Lanka at home was treated as an embarrassment and, sure, we should have beaten them but it's still a side that deserves respect which we don't seem to ever give them. I find it a bit odd.

This is a team that has the best batsman in the World, and possibly the best wicket-keeper batsman ever, over the last few years (Sangakarra).  Seriously this guy's record stacks up favourable against most all-time greats. Dilshan is a devastating match winning opener of the type we don't really have.  Jayawardene the perfect batsman for keeping the board moving in the middle overs and another great of his era.  Angelo Matthews is a very under rated player and a good finisher.  Rangan Herath is possibly the best spinner in the World right now albeit among fairly limited competition - he is very good though and England always struggle against spin.  Malinga is a nightmare to face if he gets it right which he does more often than not.  That's 6 players who would walk into the England team.  These are vastly experienced and reliable match winners in ODI's of the type we have never really had in ODI cricket.

Where England would hope to have an advantage over Sri Lanka is in depth.  Sri Lanka have high quality up top but are always going to be a bit stretched with playing resources.  The trouble is there's no evidence that England actually have much depth - we just haven't delivered consistently to justify that expectation.  Which leaves the one place that England do have a clear advantage over Sri Lanka - depth of seam attack.  The only players who would be guaranteed to get into a Sri Lankan side would be Anderson, Broad and Finn.  That is the one thing they don't really have.  After Malinga their seam attack is pedestrian and possibly sub-county standard.  The problem is that if this was in Australia that would mean a big advantage to England but in New Zealand it's less of an advantage because the ball tends to move around more and that will suit their dibbly-dobbly merchants as much as it will our bowlers.  What England would want is a hard bouncey pitch to press home that advantage and I don't think they'll get one.  They would love to be playing the Sri Lankans in Perth.

All things considered I would have thought Sri Lanka would rightly start as fairly firm favourites; they are vastly experienced, have been very successful and absolutely destroyed England in the Quarter Final of the last World Cup.  Surely England are due a win against someone decent one of these days and Sri Lanka are more vulnerable than New Zealand and Australia. If we lose it will mean a nervy game against Bangladesh.

Unimpressive at the moment. We appear to be just going through the motions.

143/3.

Not hindsight I promise you but I  feared Anderson would be ineffective in this World Cup especially if he couldn't get the ball to swing. I think he's lost a bit of nip recently too and I think he is past his best. Broad has had a lot of injuries. He definitely isn't back to his best yet and I don't think he'll ever fully fulfil his potential.

Ultimately, they're both in the side because we've got no one better. With the batting you could argue that the likes of Stokes and Roy are better than Bopara or Ballance but none of our promising bowlers have kicked on. They've completely ruined Finn. He's still way down on pace. He had all the tools to be one of England's all time greats but he's nowhere near that level at the moment.

We are crying out for a bit of variety in our attack. The left armer Gurney would have played more if he wasn't hopeless with the bat and we need someone who's quick but the two quickest bowlers I've seen in recent years, Mills and Meaker, can't get into their county sides on a regular basis. 

Yeah just to clarify, I don't think Roy or Stokes would win England matches but there are at least English batsmen who win their counties matches. I can't think of a single English seamer who regularly wins matches for his county. Even Gurney has a better T20 than list A record.

in terms of English left armers...how could you forget Mike Smith!  I've never forgiven Graham Thorpe for dropping Matthew Elliott.