Month: September 2024

Hubris and Nemesis

A look back at the England v Sri Lanka test match at The Oval which Sri Lanka won by eight wickets at lunch time on Monday, and a photo gallery.

My second most recent post here was titled “England in Control in Spite of Themselves” This post brings that story up to date.

THE END OF DAY TWO

The light closed in with Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis still in residence. Pope continued to treat the occasion lightly, using Root in partnership with Bashir when the light was too bad for pacers. This approach would have been justified for five or six overs just to see if anything good happened, but Pope kept it going for 17 wicketless overs which yielded 69 runs.

DAY THREE

This was Heritage Open Day (see here), so I missed the early part of the day. England had done well with the ball in the morning, claiming a first innings lead of 62, and had lost Duckett by the time I joined the coverage. Lawrence made his highest score to date as an opener (35), but it was an incredibly unconvincing innings, and his name is absent from the squad to tour Pakistan, with Crawley fit again. However, this was where phase one of England’s punishment for their earlier lackadaisical approach began, and only one score higher than Lawrence’s would be registered in the innings, as Sri Lanka found their bowling mojo with a vengeance. Jamie Smith did his best for the cause, with a magnificent 67, the last 50 of which, with tailenders in at the other end, came in 17 balls. Even with this performance to lift it the whole innings mustered a mere 156, the lowest total England have ever scored in a home match v Sri Lanka (previously 181, also at The Oval, in 1998 when Muralidaran weaved his webs to the tune of 9-65). That left Sri Lanka needing 219 to win. Pope started out as though he had 400 to defend rather than just over 200, and runs were soon coming at an alarming rate. Woakes took a return catch to dismiss Karunaratne for 8, but that was the only scalp for England that evening, and Sri Lanka scored 94 runs before the light closed in, with Pathum Nissanka completing his second 50 of the match, both of them at better than a run a ball.

DAY FOUR

England never looked like getting back into things, and the game was done on the stroke of lunch, Nissanka hitting a four which took his share of the spoils to 127 not out, to give Sri Lanka an eight wicket win. Kusal Mendis fell to a superb catch by Bashir off Atkinson for 39, but Angelo Mathews provided excellent support for Nissanka, who was simply majestic. He showed England how to score rapidly AND safely – the split between boundaries and running between the wickets was almost 50/50 – 13 fours and two sixes = 64 in boundaries, and therefore 63 out of 127 actually run, but he was adept at picking gaps and getting back for twos. Nissanka was Player of the Match for his performance, absolutely rightly. Root was Player of the Series, and Kamindu Mendis was named Sri Lanka’s Player of the Series. Match details here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The first genuine signs of autumn – fallen leaves and…
…conkers.
This insect was at the end of my washing line where it is tied to an upright.
Possibly the last red admiral of the year, this morning.

Heritage Open Day

Yesterday was Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn. I had a stewarding commitment at the Pilot’s Office between 10AM and Noon. This post looks back at the day.

THE PILOT’S OFFICE

I arrived at the Pilot’s Office at 9:45 as intended, and had the opportunity as I had hoped to have a quick look around before Heritage Open Day started. Unfortunately the other steward did not turn up, so I was on my own in that regard (fortunately the conservancy board were doing a good job inside the building) until the two stewards for the 12-2 slot arrived. About 130 visitors went into over the course of the time I was there. No one had seen fit to tell me that the conservancy board were being very cautious about how many people they would allow up the tower at any one time, so some people had longer waits than would be ideal, until I realized the problem and started warning people about the issue. The weather was co-operative (weather like we have today would have been a disaster).

The view from the top of the tower, looking towards The Wash.
This is on the ceiling of the room at the top of the tower.
The frontage of the building on to which the Pilot’s Office was tacked in 1864, the former public baths.

THE NORMAN HOUSE

This is one of my old favourites, and I revisited it as soon as my stewarding commitment ended. It is on King Street and houses a firm of lawyers. The Norman stuff is not readily apparent from the street.

THE LYNN MUSEUM

The Lynn Museum was open free of charge as part of Heritage Open Day. I took advantage of this. There are a number of famous regular exhibits, notably ‘Seahenge’, and at the moment (though not for very much longer) there is also an exhibition about the moon.

This model of the moon is absolutely huge.

HERITAGE OPEN DAY GENERAL

I end this photo dominated post with a few random shots from Heritage Open Day.

England in Control in Spite of Themselves

Yesterday morning the third and final test match of the series between England and Sri Lanka got underway at The Oval. This post looks at developments so far.

DAY ONE

The biggest news selection wise was the debut of 20 year old left arm pacer Josh Hull, a very controversial selection given his lack of first class experience. However Hull’s bowling was delayed as Sri Lanka won the toss and put England in to bat, as they virtually had to with an all seam attack and grey skies overhead. Unfortunately for them they did not bowl well, and Duckett and Pope certainly batted well. Duckett threw a century away when he holed out for 86, but Pope did reach three figures. There had been one stoppage for bad light already (it is long past time that they had a stock of pink balls at test venues to allow play to continue under the lights in these circumstances – ball changes are so frequent anyway that swapping a red ball for a pink one would hardly even raise an eyebrow), and with England 221-3 after 44.1 overs the light intervened once again, this time ending the day’s play.

DAY TWO

Brook and Pope resumed at 11 o’clock on a rather brighter day. Brook never suggested permanence, benefitting from a truly awful drop by Asitha Fernando early on, but failing to make use of it. Smith looked to be playing more patiently but fell cheaply in the end. Thereafter, with the shining exception of Pope who went on to pass 150, the England batting became increasing feckless and irresponsible. They were all out for 325, leaving Sri Lanka one over to negotiate before lunch. All ten England wickets were out to catches, and even the one that went behind the wicket (to gully) was an attacking shot that went wrong rather than a bowler finding the edge.

Sri Lanka got to lunch without loss, and enjoyed their best opening stand of the series so far. The end of it was entirely self-inflicted, Nissanka going for a run that was never there which resulted in his partner Karunaratne being out by two yards or thereabouts. This was particularly unfortunate for Karunaratne since he was on 6,999 test career runs at the time. Kusal Mendis helped Nissanka add 34 more for the second wicket before he edged Woakes to Brook, the 12th wicket of the match and the first to be an authentic seamer’s dismissal, the grey skies notwithstanding. Angelo Mathews never looked comfortable at the crease, and with his own score on 3 and Sri Lanka on 86 he was third out, caught by Pope off Stone. Five runs later Josh Hull claimed his first test scalp, having Nissanka caught at extra cover for 64. Two runs later Stone pinned Chandimal plumb in front (Chandimal reviewed, and the replay showed that it was indeed stone dead). That was 93-5. Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis, the latter of whom has been Sri Lanka’s best batter this series have batted sensibly, and tea has just been taken with the score 142-5. To all appearances England are in full control, but few sides can have looked less impressive while getting into such a position.

Overlapping with this match is a match at Belfast between the Irish and English women’s sides, Kate Cross’s first international match as captain. Ireland are fighting hard, but Cross (who already celebrated her elevation by recording her best ever international bowling figures in any format – 6-30) is currently proving an excellent partner for Bess Heath. England need 31 more to win, so it is not done yet.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Three Days of Auctions

A look back at an auction week at James and Sons and a photo gallery.

This week James and Sons had auctions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This post looks back at those days.

MONDAY – TOYS

The Monday auction was the smallest of three, just 150 lots going under the hammer. It was very successful. The fun started as early as lot 4, some Scalextric stuff which was expected to fetch 50-60 and ended up going £170!

Lot 9 went very cheaply to me.

Lot 43 might also have been of interest to me, being four model London Underground 1959 tube stock carriages, had it not been going way beyond my means. It was estimated at 25-35, but actually went for an eye popping £130!

These trains were still in service into the 1990s by the way.

There were other notable successes, but I will settle for highlighting just one further lot, number 96, which had a modest estimate of 15-20 and ended up going for £48!

TUESDAY

Tuesday was a work day for me, so I did not get to see what happened in that day’s auction, though there was some interesting stuff going under the hammer. Lot 667 went to me (I placed a bid online, and it was knocked down to me). While the auction was going on I was one floor up, using the scanner rather than my usual camera to image football programmes and team sheets which will be going under the hammer near the end of September.

WEDNESDAY – STAMPS

The stamp sale featured more lots than either Monday or Tuesday had, but was also quieter than either day. A Tanzanian railway stamp went to me cheaply, while the only notable success was lot 1430, which I did not image. Here is my stamp:

In its new display location, alongside a Djibouti banknote
Two close ups of the locomotive
Focus on the text

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Surrey Book Their Place on Finals Day

A look back at the first of the T20 Blast quarterfinals, between Surrey and Durham last night, and a photo gallery.

Yesterday evening saw the first of the T20 Vitality Blast quarter-finals, with Surrey playing against Durham at The Oval. This post looks at how the match unfolded.

THE DURHAM INNINGS

Surrey won the toss and decided to bowl. Graham Clark, whose brother Jordan was playing for Surrey, was out in the first over, without scoring. Durham continued to fare poorly in the early stages, and when their fourth wicket fell with the score at 36 an early finish looked likely. However a combination of some good batting and some very poor death bowling revived Durham’s fortunes to the extent that they had 162 to defend. What should have been the last ball of the innings was called no-ball, and then the extra delivery was smashed for four. This was still a poorish score for The Oval, where 180 is about par.

THE SURREY CHASE

Surrey did not have things all their own way in the chase. However, the fourth wicket pair of Dominic Sibley and Sam Curran shared an excellent partnership. Sibley was eventually out for an excellent 67, which included bringing up his 50 with a reverse scoop for six. That brought Tom Curran in to join brother Sam for the closing stages. By this point the question was how much time would Surrey have to spare, and in the end it proved to be precisely two overs.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

England Go 2-0 Up Over Sri Lanka

A look at the closing stages of the test match between England and Sri Lanka at Lord’s, and a photo gallery.

Just after 5PM on a sunny Sunday (the first day of meteorological autumn) Lahiru Kumara hit a catch to Olly Stone off the bowling of Chris Woakes and the second test match between England and Sri Lanka was over, with England comprehensive winners. This post looks the final stages of the match (see here and here for previous posts about the development of this match).

BAD LIGHT AND CUNNING PLANS

Sri Lanka lost the first wicket of their second innings just as I was preparing yesterday’s post for publication. Karunaratne and Nissanka resisted for a time, but Stone had Nissanka caught by Root to make it 43-2. The light was dodgy by then, and although there was potential an hour and 41 minutes before the final cut off time Sri Lanka sent in Prabath Jayasuriya, hoping that the light would close in quickly. This strategy had the disadvantage that it would mean that Kamindu Mendis, Sri Lanka’s best batter of the series to date would be coming in at number eight, and it could have backfired far worse than it actually did, though it cannot honestly be accounted a success. The light did close in as Sri Lanka were hoping, and they went in to today needing precisely 430 more with eight second innings wickets standing.

ATKINSON TO THE FORE

Jayasuriya did not last massively long before Woakes had him caught by Brook to make it 60-3. Angelo Mathews joined Karunaratne and they put on 55 together, in the course of which Karunaratne become the first batter in positions 1-3 on either side to top 50 in an innings in this series. Unfortunately Karunaratne, a left hander who featured in my all time Ks XI and has moved his test average to the right side of 40 since then, did not go on much beyond 50 on this occasion. He had reached 55 when a ball from Stone took his glove on the way through to keeper Smith and it was 115-4. Chandimal now joined Mathews and proceeded to bat as though he was looking for a quick win, rather than facing a target that was still over 350 runs away. It was Mathews who was the first of the pair to go in the end, inexcusably for so experienced a player he allowed a sequence of dot balls to get to him, essayed a lofted drive against Shoaib Bashir and picked out Woakes to make it 174-5. Not long later the final instalment of the Atkinson show began, when Chandimal turned a ball from him round the corner, straight into the waiting hands of Dan Lawrence to make it 192-6. He had scored 58, but it was not the sort of innings that Sri Lanka needed in that situation. Kamindu Mendis, who should have been further up the order rather than a place down on his usual number seven, played his worst test knock to date, surviving a mere five balls and scoring four before he edged Atkinson to Duckett at third slip to make it 200-7. The effect that the promotion of Prabath Jayasuriya had on him is the main reason I rate the move a failure overall. Dhananjaya de Silva and Milan Rathnayake now shared the best Sri Lankan partnership of the match, making merry against an old ball that was doing precisely nothing on a pitch that never displayed any demons. The coming of the new ball was always likely to change things, and it did. The first ball of the fourth over with it, bowled by Atkinson found its way into the stumps by way of Dhananjaya de Silva’s bat, dismissing the Sri Lankan skipper for 50 and making it 273-8. Rathnayake hit some impressive shots, including successive boundaries off Atkinson, but the ball after thex second of those shots, the third of the 86th over found the edge and Smith did the rest to make it 288-9, and give Atkinson his fifth wicket of the innings, his seventh of the match and his 33rd in the five test matches he has played to date. It was the first time an England player had combined a century and a five-for in a test match since the last of Ian Botham’s five such games, at Wellington in 1984. Four more runs accrued before, like a ham actor stealing the last line from an Oscar winner, Woakes got the wicket of Kumara as described in the introduction and England had won by 190 runs. Atkinson was named Player of the Match, correctly in my view – he and Root both had outstanding matches, but Atkinson’s was the more impressive, and Root’s copybook was blotted by a couple of dropped catches. A shared award between Atkinson and Root would have been acceptable, but I would have been annoyed had it gone to Root on his own. Scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…