After just two days of the fifth and final test match against India, England appear nailed on for a 3-1 series win, and a second straight innings victory. Joe Root is on the brink of another ton, and India look like they have already conceded. India very rarely play five match test series these days, and it is starting to show. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who dominated the first two matches is now hardly able to raise a gallop, now bowling at a gentle medium pace and without menace.
Congratulations to the Indian women for winning their one off test against England. The outcome was more or less settled when England were put out for 92 on the first day although in the end it took some good batting from Mithali Raj to see India over the line (perhaps she could replace one of the men in their currently ineffectual top order?!)
As usual I have some photos for you…
This little beauty was in the Nar Outfall, just where it joins the Ouse
White butterfly.
This heavily laden fruit tree grows in the less than salubrious environment of the Hardwick Industrial Estate
First up, before I get to the main meat of this post, a considered retrospective on the conclusion of the first test. While I give Moeen Ali full credit for his maiden test century and for taking England to within the proverbial hairs breadth (two possible balls remaining in the match when Anderson was finally out) of escaping from a match that they really surrendered in the second and third sessions of the penultimate day, I consider the final result to have been what England deserved.
Wimbledon is under way, and I spent an enjoyable afternoon yesterday listening to the play. Andy Murray looked every inch the defending champion in winning his second round match with only two games going against him, and there were several other good matches. Alhtough I am normally studious in avoiding any mention of the f-game in this blog, I could not avoid hearing about Luis Suarez’s latest (alleged) felony yesterday. My only comment is: if he is guilty, then given the nature of the offence and his previous record, there can be only one punishment: A worldwide lifetime ban from the sport that made him a rich, spoilt brat.
With the parents back from their latest sojourn abroad I had Sunday lunch in East Rudham, and picked up some good rural photographs. Also in the added media you will see a pic that has gone out on the Great Auctionfacebook and twitter pages.
England in the course of approximately half a day threw away a test match they seemed to have in the bag. When Sri Lanka lost their seventh second innings wicket they were still under 200 to the good, and one would have backed England to make a successful chase. It was at that point that the wheels began to come off, as Alastair Cook went for the “strategy” of feeding the established batsman (Angelo Mathews) singles so as to attack the tailender. I have never been greatly enamoured of such a practice, believing that it is better to encourage your bowlers to look for wickets whoever is on strike, and the moment I became absolutely 100% dead set against it was in Australia in 2009 when I saw Mohammed Yousuf gift the home side a test match that Pakistan should have strolled by doing the same things. On that occasion Mike Hussey and Peter Siddle batted for more than a session together, and instead of a token run chase at the end Pakistan faced a target of 176 and collapsed, Yousuf compounding his failure as captain by surrendering his wicket to an awful shot at a critical time. On this occasion, Mathews destroyed England with a magnificent 160, Herath the tailender made 48 (actually with no pressure being applied to the senior partner, there ends up being less pressure on the junior), and Sri Lanka’s lead mushroomed to 350, more than enough to defend in the fourth innings a match at most test match venues. Cook then compounded has failings as captain by falling cheaply to initiate a collapse that ended in the last over of the day when night-watchman Plunkett was inexcusably caught at cover playing a loose drive to leave England right in the cart at 57-5 needing a mere 293 more for victory. The only worse response to a mini session at the end of a penultimate day that I can remember from England was in Trinidad in 1994, when chasing 194 for victory they were 40-8 at the close, and there were mitigating factors in the combined form of Ambrose, Walsh and murky light on that occasion. For more details about a defeat from the jaws of victory such as even England (all-time masters of this dubious art) have seldom engineered check out cricinfo.
Now for some photos…
The Dereham War Memorial, taken through the upstairs front window of an X1 bus.
These roses grow outside my parents houseNorfolk’s stupidest and most irritating avian resident – the collared dove.
Thank you to all of you who have liked previous posts on this blog, and a bigger thank you to those of you have been kind enough to hit the follow button.
The catalogue for the June sale of James and Sons is now out, and can be viewed online by following the link provided.
I spent much of yesterday doing stuff on the Database, so I have not got many work images to show, but I have plenty of others, one of which (of Fakenham war memorial) I will be uploading on www.facebook.com/GreatAuction and of course mentioning on www.twitter.com/great_auction. As well as my usual type of photo, I have a collection of banknotes which will be lot 37 in the upcoming auction, and some books which have not yet been assigned to a particular auction but which I imaged at the same time as doing the describing.
I had little expectation of a bumper weekend’s photography on Saturday morning, when it was bucketing down with rain and there was no sign of a let up by lunch time (standard British summer day in other words!). But when the weather improved it do so with a vengeance, and Sunday morning was perfect for a long walk in the sun.
With the new camera being so powerful, the tough decisions were over which of my as yet undisplayed pictures I was going to give publicity to. One of these pictures was taken in Norwich on Thursday, but otherwise they are all locations that are within walking distance of central King’s Lynn.
aspiblog 