The Cricket Thread 2016

[Whiney MacWhineface]

We'd have had one earlier if that lovely run machine Bairstow hadn't dropped a dolly off Woakes

[PaulWinch again]

Finn's bowling well.

[Chinchilla Bathhouse]

Great start for England this morning. Really pleased for Woakes, he was under pressure to take this chance when he came in for Stokes and he's really starting to look the part. Bowling superbly.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep bowling very well.

[PaulWinch again]

Finn's rhythm is coming back.

[paul_e]

The 3 wickets at the start were superb and then Finn got a good one followed by an absolute gift.  If we can break this pair quickly I suspect we'll have a lead of over 100.  Given the weather and Cook not being around I'd like us to try to score as quickly as possible once we're in to give us enough time to clean them up again.

[olaftab]

Sri Lanka don't handle cloudy conditions very well.

[paul_e]

Just how much of a golden arm has Woakes developed in this test, 2 wickets with the first ball of a spell and a third that Bairstow put down.

[paul_e]

Gah, that's an absolute stinker that got Root, not much you can do if one stays low like that.

[PaulWinch again]

Vince has had a pretty horrid series.

[Richard]

Compton too obviously - he'll be 33 this month and if you're going to have one old stager in the batting line up he's nowhere near as good as Bell.

[paul_e]

Compton has to go, like Ballance he's losing his wicket due to a technical flaw and he's too old to have time to fix it and come back.

[PaulWinch again]

Such a shame Hales out for 94, but he's really impressed me this series. He worked on the issue he had in SA and has changed his game. A century obviously would have been nice, and deserved, but for me he's cemented his place as opener now.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

With a lead of 343 we're presumably batting on for Ali to get to 10, or us to get another 7 runs for 350.

Baffled.

[Dave Cooper please]

It's a balancing act. While Sri Lanka are highly unlikely to get to the target, 345 in 110 overs (there were 12 overs left in the day and 98 tomorrow because of the rain) is certainly not impossible. Much less and Sri Lanka could have been 60-0 at close needing only 250 or so to win in a day.