? Sri Lanka 318 & 214; England 111-2
? England require a further 229 for victory
Henry Ford may have thought history to be bunk but in cricket it has its story to relate. And as the sun beats down relentlessly on Galle cricket ground and the humidity climbs to a sapping 70%, it tells us of the size of the task that faced England when, half an hour before tea on the third day, they embarked on their second innings in an effort to win the first Test.
The statistics are not encouraging. Only nine times have they batted fourth and scored 340 or more, never to win, and six of those times in a losing cause. They made 285 for seven in Kandy in 2003 to save a game that looked lost and, four years later on the same ground, scored 261, only to succumb as Muttiah Muralitharan recaptured the Test wicket record for the final time. Those two innings remain their highest fourth-innings totals on the subcontinent.
There is significance in taking 340 as the benchmark, for once the perspiring put-upon England bowlers had finally dismissed Sri Lanka a second time, for 214, a noble effort notwithstanding some slip-ups on the way, that was the score they would be required to make to win this first Test and, therefore, given that there are still two more days to play and rain looks a distant prospect, not to lose and go into the second and final match in Colombo playing catch-up. Murali is around no longer to torment them on a wearing pitch, but in Rangana Herath, the six-wicket hero of England's first innings, Suraj Randiv and Tillakaratne Dilshan there are experienced tweakers enough to make life awkward.
By the close, with England 111 for two, and 229 more needed, the game was still in the balance, optimism carried on the team bus back to their distant hotel by a third-wicket partnership of 61 between Jonathan Trott (40 not out) and Kevin Pietersen (29 not out), who came together inside the first 19 overs while the ball was still hard, after Herath had added the further wickets of the openers Alastair Cook for 14 and Andrew Strauss, 27, to his haul.
For Trott and Pietersen, it looked, and unquestionably was, hard work. The pitch may have lost some of its pace, but it offered slow turn. Pietersen in particular worked his socks off looking to play straight, get his bat in the way and his pads out, mixing calculated aggression with defence and a willingness to use his feet, in itself a chancy occupation against spinners upping their pace.
There was mental torment for the pair as Mahela Jayawardene set strangulating fields, preying in particular on Trott's penchant for the on-side by setting, for the off-spin of Dilshan and Randiv, a leg-side field biased seven to two, and which included four close fielders in an arc from leg-slip to short midwicket. It closes off his clip while leaving the offside invitingly open but perilous to seek with the ball turning sharply in to the right-hander.
It almost brought the wicket of Pietersen, on 12, when he pushed forward and the turning ball took the inside edge and, in a rather retro cricket way, went quickly to Kumar Sangakkara perched "round the corner" as they say. Sangakkara juggled and dropped in a manner that would have Jim Laker and Tony Lock, a cliche almost for that type of routine dismissal in their heyday, spinning in their graves. The 21 overs Trott and Pietersen were together before the close provided the most intriguing passage of play of the match to date.
The key to it all has to be patience. In Abu Dhabi in January, England fell foul of a timid approach to chasing a mere 145 with time not an option and were humiliated against Pakistan to the tune of 72 all out. By contrast, England's first innings here was a frenetic affair, a blaze of boundaries and hapless dismissals. Like everything there is a balance. Cook and Strauss were right to attack the new ball square of the wicket, but after Cook had gone to a referred catch behind in which the third umpire must have changed his decision on noise picked up by the stump mic, Strauss, rather than digging in, ventured out of his comfort zone and dragged an attempted lofted drive to midwicket. That was poor. But the longer a batsman stays in, the calmer becomes the pitch, the softer the ball and the easier to play. These are honest Sri Lanka bowlers, but not terrors. Just as a bowler can wear a batsman down, so can a batsman wear down a bowler.
England's bowlers have largely been beyond reproach, let down not only by the batting but by some fielding lapses too and ? crucially, it may turn out ? Stuart Broad's penchant for bowling no-balls. He alone on either side has transgressed in this match, eight times in all, the last of them costing a wicket when, with the last man in, Prasanna Jayawardene top-edged a bouncer to be caught and bowled. He had 28 at the time, and went on to make a fine robust unbeaten 61, he and Suranga Lakmal adding a further 47 runs before the latter was run out. Graeme Swann's sixth wicket of the innings had reduced Sri Lanka to 127 for eight, a lead then of 253. The last two wickets added 87.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/mar/28/jonathan-trott-england-sri-lanka
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