T20 Cricket always has something of a carnival atmosphere to it. It's big, it's loud and it's full of colourful lights! Most of the rides while fun tend to be at breakneck speed, twisting, turning and generally throwing you every which way. The fact that this T20 match between Sri Lanka and England was a one-off sandwiched in between the recently completed ODI series and the upcoming Test Matches made it feel like even more of a showcase event.
England eventually ran out comfortable winners in this match as their total of 187 proved too steep a challenge for Sri Lanka to chase. Jason Roy got England off to a flier with 69 from 36 balls including 6 maximums with contributions from Buttler, Stokes, Moeen and the recalled Joe Denly making his first international appearance in more than 8 years, helping England to their total. However, it was with the ball in his hand that Denly really excelled taking the first 2 wickets to fall in Sri Lanka's innings then finishing the job by taking 2 more in the final over. For their part, Sri Lanka were never really up with the rate and were indebted to their stand-in captain Thisara Perera who clubbed 57 from 31 balls to help them avoid total embarrassment.
Today's fun at the fair was provided by ........
Roy's Rollercoaster
Jason Roy is one of those athlete's who you could probably keep a camera on throughout the game and get pretty good value for your viewing regardless of whether he is directly involved in the game at that particular point or not. He seems to go through the full spectrum of human emotions about once every 10 minutes! While it's entertaining to watch a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, sometimes they don't always make the most consistent of cricketers.
Some of Roy's strokeplay today was exceptional and it was he and Jos Buttler's lightning start that got England ahead in the match, a position that they would go onto defend with ease. Roy strolled down the pitch to just his 2nd ball and smeared one of cricket's greatest ever white ball bowlers in Lasith Malinga into the stands for 6. He followed that up with 5 more maximums and 4 boundaries, striking at an incredible 191.67 for the 53minutes that he was at the crease.
However, in between his big hitting, he did manage to involve himself in some fairly farcical incidents. Firstly there was the dismissal of Alex Hales who was given out LBW on the field to a ball that was shown to be missing the stumps. After a lengthy discussion with Roy who was at the non-striker's end, Hales was advised that is was best not to review the decision and made his way back to the dressing room. Next up, Roy decided to commit the cardinal sin of running out his captain when he called Eoin Morgan through for a suicide single. Roy himself had almost been run out just moments before having charged up the wicket looking for a quick single only to be sent back by his partner. Had the Sri Lankan fielder's throw not hit the fast retreating Roy in the calf then he would have been dismissed. As it was Sri Lanka appealed for Roy to be given out obstructing field, an appeal that any sain captain would quickly have withdrawn in order to keep the game moving.
Whether the period left Roy's mind frazzled or whether it was just another helter-skelter T20 innings will never be known. However, what we do know is that Jason Roy went on to provide 5 very catchable chances to Sri Lanka's outfielders who all decided that they too were enjoying watching this whirlwind of a batsman far too much to end his little cameo. When you consider that 10 of the 36 deliveries he faced were hit for 4s or 6s, 6 more of them were dropped or missed run-out opportunities and 2 more were him directly contributing to the dismissal of another player then it's fair to say that Roy could be given a standalone highlights reel from this match. Even when he finally was out it was all a bit ludicrous with the batsman deciding to review a decision against him of caught behind when it seemed fairly obvious that he'd hit it! I wonder how Alex Hales greeted him back in the changing room after that one. Either way, the Roy Rollercoaster had come to an end leaving his teammates, the opposition and spectators alike enthralled if not a little shaken.
Kamindu Mendis provides the freakshow!
As far as I'm aware there were no bearded women playing on either team today but Sri Lanka did give us a look at Kamindu Mendis, an ambidextrous bowler. From a batting point of view, we have seen switch-hitting in cricket for a while now and the reverse sweep (see cricketing 101) is seen as one of the most important weapons in a modern T20 batsman's armory. However, I have never seen anyone be able to bowl effectively with both right and left arm so Mendis' inclusion in this game was certainly a point of interest. Mendis bowled well enough, finishing with 0-27 from 3 overs but in general, his inclusion in the side speaks volumes about the lack of depth and quality in Sri Lankan cricket at the moment with the 20-year-old only having taken 5 wickets in domestic white ball cricket before today. If anything it was his batting that looked the more accomplished skill as he struck 24 from 14 balls including his side's first 6 of the match. Time will tell whether Kamindu Mendis has the skill set to succeed at the highest level or whether he is just a passing gimmick who will quickly be forgotten.
<grammarly-btn>Sri Lanka fail to visit the Fortune Teller
Tarot cards, tea leaves, palm reading or a crystal ball. Whatever the medium for seeing the future, Sri Lanka could have done with a session prior to winning the toss and electing to put England into bat. Winning the toss and deciding to chase is the default decision for most captains around the world but what Sri Lanka got wrong yesterday was their inability to find the right line, length and pace to bowl on this pitch until the 4th over. By that point, England had gotten away to such a good start that even though Sri Lanka fought back in the middle overs, it always felt as if 188 was likely to be too great a challenge.
Of course, when it came England's turn to bowl they had no such excuses and no need to gaze into the future, they had seen first hand how the pitch played and the kind of bowling that would be successful on it. England opened with Joe Denly (see below) who managed 3 overs on the trot during the powerplay to successfully smoother the Sri Lankans. Already behind the rate and losing wickets at regular intervals, the situation was tailor made for Adil Rashid. Unable to pick between his leg-breaks, googlies and front of the hand deliveries, Sri Lanka once again fell into the mode of block, block, slog with the slog element generally resulting in them losing a wicket. In fact, Rashid didn't concede a boundary in his 4 overs and produced career-best figures of 3-11. In his final over Sri Lanka seemed to have taken the decision to just play him out and go after the remainder of England's attack. Rashid actually looked pretty disappointed by this tactic and threw down a couple of particularly slow and loopy leg-breaks in the hope of enticing the batsmen into another fatal rush of blood to the head.
<grammarly-btn>Liam Plunket fresh from committing sporting suicide by getting married midway through a season (remember what happened to Aaron Finch in the IPL last year?) hadn't gotten the memo about not bowling length on this pitch and was smashed for consecutive 6s by Thisara Perera. Thereafter, Chris Jordan came back on and his yorkers, plus Tom Curran's slower balls proved too much for the Sri Lankan lower order who quickly came and went to leave their captain stranded at the other end with too much to do. It was clear that England were very keen to erase criticism of any complacency still lingering from their heavy defeat in the 5th ODI and with Morgan back at the helm, England's bowlers and fielders were kept on their toes regardless of the fact that the game was a foregone conclusion with about 5 overs still to play.
The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Joe Denly
You can't go to the fair without meeting someone who claims to be able to do something that is impossible. We've already seen ambidextrous bowling and fortune telling so why not time travel! That seems to be the trick that England's Joe Denly has pulled off after he was named Man of the Match during his first appearance in an England shirt for more than 8 years. For Denly who made his England debut in 2009 as a promising 23-year-old, the big move that was to ignite his career and allow him to cement his place in the England team, involved him signing for Middlesex. The decision proved a catastrophe for him and he made just 1800 runs in 4 seasons with the London based club, nowhere near the quantity required to get himself back on the radar of the national selectors. In 2015, Denly left Middlesex to return to his native Kent with the chances of him playing for England again about on a par with him winning the National Lottery.
However, Denly's form over the past couple of years in particular has been spectacular. I can attest to just how well he has been playing as I watched him score a century against Surrey at the Oval this season before he then came onto bowl and took a hat-trick! In doing so he became the first player to ever achieve this double in a T20 game and only the 11th player to do so in any form of 1st class cricket. Denly's domestic success and resulting inclusion in the England side will have given hope to many first-class cricketers who have seen their own promising careers falter only to return to form once they became a little older and a little wiser. England's Chairman of Selectors, Ed Smith had spoken in the summer about his willingness to give such players a chance in the national set-up and Denly's performance yesterday appears to be paying dividends as he scored a useful 20 with the bat then took 4-19 with the ball.
Cricketing 101 - The Reverse Sweep
While this is not a new shot it has certainly become a far more popular shot with the advent of T20 cricket. With fielding sides restricted in where they can place their fielders, it is unlikely that a team will have a man back on the boundary edge behind square on both sides of the wicket. The reverse sweep, therefore, is not only a great way to score runs in itself but it is also a wonderful tool for batsmen to use to maneuver the field and sow doubt into the minds of the bowler and opposition captain as to where he is going to hit the ball next.
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