The Shorter Wisden 2013 (53 page)
Read The Shorter Wisden 2013 Online
Authors: John Wisden,Co
Then Umar Gul took over, claiming four in 30 deliveries – including the hapless Bell, who slapped a long-hop straight to cover – before Ajmal and Rehman finished things off to end
the series with 43 wickets between them. Throw in five for Mohammad Hafeez, and Pakistan’s spinners had claimed 48, a national record in any Test series, and only two short of the three-Test
record of 50 shared by India and Sri Lanka, both against New Zealand, in 1976-77 and 1997-98 respectively.
While Strauss had arrived talking of Asia as England’s final frontier, and left with it resolutely unconquered, Misbah-ul-Haq spoke of a “dream come true”. After all that
Pakistan cricket had gone through, only the most cold-hearted Englishman could begrudge them their triumph.
Man of the Match:
Azhar Ali.
Man of the Series:
Saeed Ajmal.
Anderson 14.1–3–35–3; Broad 16–5–36–4; Panesar 13–4–25–2; Swann 1–1–0–1.
Second
innings
—Anderson 28–7–51–1; Broad 24–7–55–1; Panesar 56.4–13–124–5; Swann 39–6–101–3; Trott
2–0–14–0; Pietersen 3–0–9–0.
Umar Gul 7–1–28–2; Aizaz Cheema 4–0–9–0; Saeed Ajmal 23–6–59–3; Abdur Rehman 21–4–40–5.
Second
innings
—Umar Gul 20–5–61–4; Aizaz Cheema 4–0–9–0; Mohammad Hafeez 5–2–6–0; Abdur Rehman 41.3–10–97–2; Saeed Ajmal
27–9–67–4.
Umpires: S. J. Davis and S. J. A. Taufel. Third umpire: S. K. Tarapore. Referee: J. J. Crowe.
Test matches (2): Sri Lanka 1, England 1
Noel Coward may have had a point when he wrote about mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun – even if he wasn’t necessarily thinking of Sri Lanka in April. But in
scorching temperatures, England were as heroic in squaring the series in Colombo as they had been flaky while losing at Galle. If the mercury told a relentless tale, England’s own gauge
fluctuated wildly: few sides could have made Asian conditions look both baffling and straightforward within the space of a week as expertly as they did.
They began this brief tour – just two Tests and no limited-overs matches – still smarting from a 3–0 defeat by Pakistan in the UAE, where their travails against spin had been
exposed alarmingly. Despite that trauma, they were still favourites to secure a first series triumph in Sri Lanka for 11 years. On paper, a contest between a Sri Lankan team yet to win a home Test
since the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan, and an England side still ranked No. 1, with a bowling attack in rude health and batsmen who surely couldn’t keep failing, would provide only one
winner. And yet cricket, as the old pros have it, is played not on paper but on grass – and sometimes on slow turners, where England discovered that Sri Lanka did not need Murali to tie them
in knots.
As it was, a 1–1 draw felt about right once the efforts of Mahela Jayawardene, Rangana Herath, Kevin Pietersen and Graeme Swann were stacked up. But, for the third time in the 2011-12
season alone, a high-profile two-Test series was left crying out for a decider. The ECB had wanted a third match, but the hard-up Sri Lankan board had other concerns, so the series was squeezed
into a narrow window between the lucrative Asia Cup, whose TV money pleased the administrators, and the IPL, whose contracts placated the players. Test cricket, the sport’s so-called jewel in
the crown, was once again being treated like a mere bauble.
With equal predictability, it was the arrival of several thousand British tourists that provided Sri Lanka Cricket with their best gate receipts in years. Australian fans the previous September
had paid 500 rupees (about £2.50) for their daily tickets. Now, SLC charged travelling supporters ten times as much in the knowledge that – though many had budgeted for far less –
enough of them would be prepared, however grudgingly, to fork out. And so it proved: both the Galle International Stadium and the P. Sara Oval in Colombo were packed to the rafters, even if locals
– who had access to poorly advertised tickets at 50 rupees each – were disconcertingly hard to spot.
Many England fans, though, voted with their feet, and instead formed a makeshift terrace on the ramparts of the Galle Fort, from where they could watch the First Test at a distance. Access was
free – or at least it was until the final day, when a local politician attempted to charge a 1,000-rupee entry fee on the pretext of holding a party which was not due to start until the
evening. The opportunism left a sour taste – as did the litter left behind by spectators on the ramparts – and not everyone made the trip north to Colombo; those who did had no choice
but to pay over the odds once more.
The consolation – or possibly the saving grace – came in the form of two absorbing Tests. Central to the plot was Jayawardene, who registered his fifth and sixth hundreds at home
against England, a figure bettered only by Don Bradman, with eight. Such was his brilliance in both games that his performance might have been considered career-defining had he not already defined
it many times over. Never before, though, had he walked out in successive first innings on a hat-trick. Twice he calmly dealt with an on-song James Anderson – and twice he went on to score
centuries. His 180 at Galle may have been an even finer innings than his unbeaten 213 there against England in December 2007, and only when Swann winkled him out on the final morning in Colombo
could the tourists feel confident of squaring the series.
Sri Lanka’s victory in the First Test owed just as much to the left-arm spin of Herath. With England apparently opting for a policy of sweep or bust – and often both – he
needed to do little more than bowl straight: tentative batting and the presence of the Decision Review System did the rest. Herath’s 12 wickets surpassed anything Muralitharan had managed in
ten home Tests against England, who were spared a greater thrashing only by Jonathan Trott’s sensible and unhurried 112.
At Galle, Swann had been accompanied by Monty Panesar and the debutant Samit Patel – the nearest England had come to selecting a trio of front-line spinners since 1987-88, when Nick Cook,
John Emburey and Eddie Hemmings all played at Faisalabad. Yet it was Anderson who shone brightest, even though Sri Lanka were allowed to wriggle free from 15 for three in the first innings and 14
for three in the second. For once, England’s fielding was ragged.
Four Test defeats in a row left Andrew Strauss under pressure before the final match of the winter. Not only were his team losing, but his own form had been patchy; another defeat would cost
them their No. 1 status. At the Sara, where England had contested Sri Lanka’s inaugural Test 30 years earlier, Strauss’s bowlers were thwarted for a while by Jayawardene. But the
England captain and his opening partner Alastair Cook left the sweep back in the dressing-room, and proceeded to play as smartly as Trott had done at Galle. Strauss’s steady 61 removed some
of the heat – metaphorically, at least – and allowed him to sit back and enjoy the batting of Pietersen.
An innings of 151 from 165 balls would have been beyond most of his contemporaries. Throw in a smattering of controversial switch hits, and Pietersen’s batting entered the realms of the
unique. Swann’s second-innings haul of six for 106, to give him ten wickets in the match, ensured he ended the winter as he began it – ahead of Panesar, who had threatened his status as
England’s go-to spinner with 14 wickets in two Tests in the UAE. Tim Bresnan, meanwhile, the man who replaced Panesar in Colombo, could now celebrate 11 Test wins out of 11.
Above all, the win – only England’s second in Asia against a team other than Bangladesh since the 2–1 victory in Sri Lanka in 2000-01 – ensured they would finish a
disappointing Test winter still the world’s top-ranked team. It had not been easy. But then, for England on the subcontinent, it rarely is.
SRI LANKA v ENGLAND
L
AWRENCE
B
OOTH
At Galle, March 26–29, 2012. Sri Lanka won by 75 runs. Toss: Sri Lanka. Test debut: S. R. Patel.
The Union Flag that fluttered on top of Galle’s Dutch fort ought to have raised the alarm. It was the wrong way up. Done deliberately, this is supposed to mean SOS; by accident, and
it’s anyone’s guess. For much of a game in which England plunged to their fourth straight Test defeat – their worst sequence since the 2006-07 Ashes whitewash – the batsmen
seemed determined to provide their own grim twist: Save Our Sweep.
Five men fell playing a stroke that, as England pointed out with some justification, has its place on Asian pitches. But they played it too often, most perilously to full-length deliveries on
the stumps: four of the five departed leg-before, with Prior the exception, creaming one into Thirimanne’s midriff at short leg to signal the beginning of the end of England’s
fourth-innings hopes.
The chief beneficiary was Herath, whose career-best 12 for 171 made him the first slow left-armer to take ten wickets in a Test against England for 50 years. By doing little more than plugging
away on a pitch that demanded caution but should not have provoked panic, Herath spun Sri Lanka to their first home win since Muttiah Muralitharan’s final Test, also at Galle, in July 2010,
and to their second-best match figures against England, behind Murali’s 16 for 220 at The Oval in 1998. And if Murali was the more artful, Herath harnessed the zeitgeist: aim for the pads,
and leave the rest to scrambled minds and the DRS. Not since Karachi in 1977-78 – when Shakoor Rana was one of the umpires – had England lost six batsmen lbw in a Test innings.
Yet Sri Lanka might have lost had it not been for Mahela Jayawardene, in his first Test as captain for three years and without so much as a fifty in 12 innings. Not long after his arrival, Sri
Lanka were 15 for three. But he calmly saw off England’s new-ball salvo, then found a succession of partners happy to play third fiddle (daylight was second).
Even so, England were generous. With Sri Lanka 138 for five – a recovery of sorts, but still below par after winning a crucial toss – Anderson dropped a half-chance as he
back-pedalled from slip after Jayawardene, on 64, had failed to cope with Swann’s extra bounce. Then, on 90, he was missed by Anderson again, this time a return catch around his left ear. The
next ball was deposited over long-on for six, the shot of a man keen to salt the wound.
For England, it would get worse. Desperate to take the last two wickets, they instead endured a pair of Panesar mishaps. On 147, Jayawardene pulled Anderson’s third delivery with the
second new ball to long leg, where Panesar, possibly dazzled by the sun, could only parry it over the rope. In the next over, fate inevitably decreed that it was Panesar who should be standing at
mid-on under a steepler as Jayawardene – now 152 – miscued a heave off Broad. Down went the chance, and with it English heads, lifting only when the excellent Anderson finally did get
Jayawardene to complete his 12th five-wicket haul in Tests and go past his fellow Lancastrian Brian Statham’s tally of 252 into fifth place on England’s all-time list.
Sri Lanka’s last three wickets had added 127, while Jayawardene’s 180 was streets ahead of Chandimal, who came next with 27. Not only was it his 30th Test century, but his seventh
both at Galle and against England. Just as impressive as his occasionally dashing strokeplay was his mastery of the strike: while he faced 315 balls, his ten team-mates faced 268 between them; and
he ticked off 51 singles, 23 more than England would manage in total first time round. It was, quite simply, an innings for the ages.
This became even clearer as England subsided to 193, itself a fightback – led by Bell – from 92 for six. Without a carefree last-wicket stand of 36 between Anderson and Panesar, the
deficit would have been even greater than 125. Then, when England bowled again, they kept on fighting. Broad knocked over Dilshan in the second over and, when Swann appeared as early as the
seventh, he produced a beauty to bowl the left-handed Thirimanne with his second ball. It was 14 for three when Swann had Jayawardene caught at slip, and Sangakkara quickly followed. In all, 17
wickets fell on the second day, equalling the venue record. By the close, Sri Lanka – five down – led by 209.