Anderson's average speed varies between 85-88 mph at the end of a days bowling.

Shame his direction is so wayward.he isn't good enough end of discussion.

What a pathetic display by England.Well done Sri Lanka on your series win.

With England at 47-6 in reply to Sri Lanka's first innings score of 499-8 dec, it's not the bowlers who are going to lose this one, is it?

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Well OF,the bowlers weren't good enough but they were let down by the fielders dropping numerous catches (have we ever had a worse fielding side?) and the batsmen Bell and KP apart have all got out playing poor shots.

This pitch was more of a 280-300 pitch and we let them get 500 by bowling poorly and dropping sitters.As for our batting well it looked to me like we had given up and just want to come home which i am very annoyed about.

Not in my memory, no. Let's go through them...

Vaughan - slow. Fairly dismal catcher - drops sitters far too frequently.
Cook - Limited. Drops catches. Not a county gully, let alone an international one.
Bell - Decent field, not a first slip.
KP - Good.
Collingwood - This is what frustrated me the most. When he dropped Tharanga, the commentators were going on about how he's the best catcher in the side. He might be, but has he fielded at second slip since he was in his teens?
Bopara - Not seen enough to make a judgement really.
Prior - Great start to the series, singularly awful in this match. His miss yesterday morning - where he withdrew the glove despite the fact the ball was patently short of 1st slip, was abysmal.
Sidebottom - Seems to trudge round the outfield well enough.
Harmison - Likewise
Hoggard - Likewise
Monty - let's not start with that one, eh?

Compare with the Ashes twelve:

Tres - Excellent slip
Strauss - Decent slip - prone to errors.
Bell - excellent at short leg, in the covers etc.
Vaughan - as above
KP - As above
Flintoff - World class slip - occassionally let down by stupiud mistakes.
Collingwood - Fantastic cover point
Jones - OK, fair enough.
Giles - World class gully
S Jones - Brilliant outfielder
Hoggard and Harmison - as above.

(To be fair, it's worth pointing out that Anderson's a very good fielder, and Broad's not too bad either)

The difference is obvious for all to see...

They did that also against Sri Lanka at Lords 2006, I believe that 9 catches were dropped that match.

As for this match, it's the bowlers with no teeth that are Englands main worry, certainly when England came out to bat they were batting for surviva(again) - and not for a win.

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Ern

74-9 now. This is the worst day for our cricket team since that 5th day of the Adelaide test match last year which was the most depressing day of English cricket I'd seen in 20 years of watching.

What on earth has happened to this team since the 2005 ashes. OK yes, a big part is due to endless injuries which has lead to some of those Ashes players not playing now, and the other ones not getting into a rhythym. But I'm sorry, this is not far off our best team at the moment and they are looking hideous. What is this down to? Sri Lanka have bowled/fielded well but not 74-9 well! Is it a lack of fight, can Peter Moores be to blame?

I think Monty has just got run out, thats the innings done, I'm speechless.

Well i imagine we will be following on and will have to show a darn sight more fight in the 2nd innings than in the this one.Abject,pathetic,abysmal,take your pick on what word you want to use to describe this performance.

If i was Moores i would be disgusted by this performance.

Thaks for that Aurelius, do you have figures on Steve Waugh, Border and Ponting. My guess would be all their averages improved once they were captain. If poss I'd like tom see the same comparison for Gooch, Gatt and Gower. Its a bit sad but I think this is very interesting. Maybe we should put it on a seperate thread Aurelius?

Yes this is pretty poor; agree about that day in Adelaide, easily the worse day I've had watching England and I've been doing that for over 30 years!! It didn't help that I'd been watching through the night and was just drained by the end of it.

Back to this game; absolutely vital we show some bottle and atleast put up a show and not collapse in a heap. We will certainly lose but its important we don't humiliate ourselves.