**Official** Sri Lanka in England and Ireland 2016

[weldone]

I don't see why getting out for a duck after facing 4 balls and then making a not out ton in the next innings invalidates what he is saying. Anyone can bowl a good ball, as a team SL should face tougher opposition than that before facing Anderson & Broad.

SL have the earliest tour of the English summer and don't get enough preparation while being a traditionally weak side vs swing.

If you can't get a first innings lead in both your warm-up matches, and then claim the opposition wasn't good enough that comes across as incredibly funny tbh.

 

[viriya]

It's not good enough because the standard jumps significantly at Test level. The warm-ups should at least be at a level close to Test level for it to be adequate preparation.

It's a warmup - they are not expected to destroy them necessarily, just to get proper practice for the actual match. His argument that he barely faced pacers and then SL had to face Anderson and Broad right away is valid - even if SL didn't destroy the opposition.

 

[weldone]

It's not good enough because the standard jumps significantly at Test level. The warm-ups should at least be at a level close to Test level for it to be adequate preparation.

It's a warmup - they are not expected to destroy them necessarily, just to get proper practice for the actual match. His argument that he barely faced pacers and then SL had to face Anderson and Broad right away is valid - even if SL didn't destroy the opposition.

They'd lose both the games if those were 5 day games. They were closer to getting destroyed than to destroy. They put up worse performances than their opposition.

 

[91Jmay]

Teams probably should play better warm up opposition, but in this instance SL can hardly moan. They were tested by the warm up teams, and that is all that can be asked.

Big 3 are quite bad for sending out weak opposition though tbf.

 

[Furball]

There isn't room in the schedule to just give them a warm up against the Lions and if you struggle against one of the worst First Class sides in England then I'm not sure what playing better opposition would achieve.

 

[viriya]

SL beat Eng in 2014, you guys are evaluating the results on hindsight. They deserved to face better opposition as warm-up regardless of how they performed. Do you not think there is a disconnect when Eng faces the SL A team when they tour but SL can't even get a Div 1 game?

Their performance in them should be irrelevant. Especially since you can't predict how they would perform vs Div I opponents.

 

[91Jmay]

Yes there is a disconnect, they should be more parity of opposition however on this tour it literally can't have had any impact as Sri Lanka struggled so badly against the said D2 teams.

 

[viriya]

There is no argument that this SL team is ****. The point is you don't want them to be worse than the actual bad they are because of lack of preparation as well.

 

[smash84]

for once i have to agree with viriya. SL are **** but you want to give them a fair opportunity to show their real ****ness. Not allow them to be even more ****e than they actually are

 

[Furball]

They got two warm up games, what the **** else did they want?

 

[Furball]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/31/alastair-cook-james-anderson-england-the-spin

 

[FBU]

I don't see why getting out for a duck after facing 4 balls and then making a not out ton in the next innings invalidates what he is saying. Anyone can bowl a good ball, as a team SL should face tougher opposition than that before facing Anderson & Broad.

SL have the earliest tour of the English summer and don't get enough preparation while being a traditionally weak side vs swing.

England have been on tours where the opposition is so weak we have had to lend them some of our players
The Home of CricketArchive

 

[smash84]

They got two warm up games, what the **** else did they want?

probably another 2 games until the summer got a little warmer and less wet i reckon

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Players tend to play to their opposition's level

wot

 

[marc71178]

Well he did get a ton in one of them. imo there is some point to what he's saying. England plays the A team when they tour SL the least they can provide is a Division I matchup. Players tend to play to their opposition's level, and even if a Div I team would've destroyed them harder they would be better prepared for the Tests.

Total and utter bollocks. England haven't descended to Sri Lanka's level so far in the Test series.

 

[Peaceful5583]

I believe it's a national law in Sri Lanka that each Test squad has at least 4 keepers iirc

NZ too keep bunch of keeper but its okayed as far as they bats well

 

[theegyptian]

Warmup games are shared around the non international grounds presumably so that the touring team can be seen by more of the country. Div 1 at the moment has only Taunton which isn't an international ground - and they get regular tourist games (just not this year). Div 2 has 7/9 non international grounds. That's why they played div 2 teams this year.

Also at the point that the warmup games were being played there were 8 championship games being played so there were only two free teams as it was. Durham(international ground) and Essex; Leicestershire and Hampshire(international ground).

I always liked the lions games so I was sad they got scrapped. Don't know why. Probably to make room for the lions (a) 50 over games later in the summer.

Waiting until your 2-0 to complain about the tour games seems pretty ridiculous especially when you were outplayed by these so called div 2 sides.

 

[weldone]

They got two warm up games, what the **** else did they want?

They needed some real fast bowlers bowling in the warm-ups aiming SL bois on their body - so that most of their batsmen would be injured and they could use that as a stronger excuse for the pathetic losses in test matches.

 

[weldone]

Uh, can't believe that my posts are looking like I am supporting England against SL! I blame Karunaratne and viriya for this.

 

[Dan]

Even if SL struggled with 70mph trundlers in rainy old Vardyville, there are precisely zero relevant takeaways from getting destroyed by Tom Wells (beyond 'be less **** and hit the ****ing red thing') when it comes to preparing for Anderson at Lord's.

At least if they'd played vaguely comparable opposition that are closer to the standard they'd be playing in the Tests -- and still got equally demolished -- at least they'd get more relevant information.

It's not just about adjusting to conditions, its also about adjusting to the standard of opposition. SL could play 25 games in the lead-up against league teams or 2nd XIs and would probably still get killed in the Tests, because facing sixteen versions of Rob Taylor doesn't give you much meaningful preparation when you've got Broad at the top of his mark in the real stuff.

I can't blame England, or the counties, given how much they need to manage workloads. But wouldn't it be better for both English cricket more broadly and SL's preparation if they had, say, an attack of Barker, Roland-Jones, Plunkett, and an Overton brother all fired up trying to force themselves into England contention?