Key events
8th over: England 39-1 (Lawrence 14, Pope 6) A piece of filth from Vishwa Fernando is cut easily for four by Pope. Vishwa gets it right next ball with a nice inswinger that Pope thick-edges for a single. Pope can struggle against left-arm swing bowlers.
7th over: England 32-1 (Lawrence 12, Pope 1) Sri Lanka have a chance here because the ball is doing a bit. Ollie Pope gets off the mark by working his first delivery off the pads for a single, then Lawrence inside-edges another.
Sri Lanka almost ran out of time with that Duckett review; there was one second remaining when Dhananjaya sent it upstairs.
“After weeks of dry weather and occasional scattered showers, it is of course sod’s law that it will rain for almost five days of a Test match at Old Trafford,” says Ruth. “As a local, it happens almost every time and it won’t stop being funny.”
It stopped bloody being funny last summer!
I’ve over it, it’s okay. DON’T TOUCH ME.
WICKET! England 30-1 (Duckett LBW b A Fernando 18)
Nope, he’s gone! It pitched in line and swung back, a really good delivery in fact, and Duckett has gone.
Paul Reiffel, a very good umpire, has had a funny few minutes.
Duckett flicked across a full delivery from Asitha Fernando that hit him in front of middle and leg. We’ll soon find out where it pitched. I reckon it might be umpire’s call.
Sri Lanka review for LBW against Duckett!
This is really close. If it pitched in line it’s surely out.
Lawrence is not out!
Lawrence shovelled across a good nipbacker that hit him above the knee roll, and he’s a tall man. There was a bit of surprise when Paul Reiffel gave it out… because it would have bounced over the top, as the technology has just confirmed.
Review! Lawrence given out LBW to A Fernando
Height will save him I reckon.
6th over: England 29-0 (Duckett 18, Lawrence 10) The other Fernando, the left-arm seamer Vishwa, starts at the other end. He had a good spell at Yorkshire earlier in the season, which included match figures of 9 for 88 against Derbyshire.
Duckett push a single to deep point, whose deployment is annoying Stuart Broad in the commentary box. “How can you let a really good ball like that go for a run?”
So far, so comfortable for England.
5th over: England 27-0 (Duckett 17, Lawrence 9) Duckett drives Asitha’s Fernando’s first ball of day two through the covers for a couple. Sri Lanka have sweepers on both sides for both openers. There’s a strangled shout for LBW when Lawrence misses an attempted flick off the pads; it was missing leg.
“The revised session times add up to 5 hours and 55 minutes of play, but eight overs are lost from the full day of 90. Is this a tacit admission that teams aren’t keeping up with over-rates?”
That includes the extra half-hour, which I added on because they will inevitably need it. Officially the evening session finishes at 7pm.
Time for cricket. England are 22 for 0, a deficit of 214, with Ben Duckett on 13 and Dan Lawrence on 9. And it’s a really good time to bowl.
The floodlights are on so this will be a good time to bowl, and a significant test of Dan Lawrence, opening batsman.
“That 1990s England team holds a special place in the hearts of so many fans,” says Max Williams. “They seem to be more beloved than more recent and successful England teams. There are podcasts, books – Emma John’s is a lovely read – and vast amounts of goodwill. Is heroic (mostly) failure easier to cherish than hardnosed triumph? Or is it that they competed in the last golden era of Test cricket? They were playing in the most glorious of sunsets, even if we didn’t know it at the time.”
I was going to say it’s probably a generational thing, but you’re a lot younger aren’t you? The fact Athers and Nasser are such extraordinary broadcasters probably adds to the affection as well. And you’re right: Emma’s book is fantastic.
“Re: Andy Davies’ 12.22 email on the Old Trafford karaoke singers – it’s not the first time something like this has happened,” writes Josh B. I was at a Hundred game last year where I was unable to hear anything of what I’m sure was a storming set by the Lottery Winners because of a singer with an acoustic guitar in the same very spot.
”No blame to the entertainers themselves, of course, but given that one of the big selling points of The Hundred is meant to be the live performance in between matches, there seems to be somewhat of a consistent disconnect between what’s being arranged on and off the pitch at OT.”
Revised session times
Afternoon 1.15-4pm
Evening 4.20-7.30pm
Maximum of 82 overs to be bowled.
Play to start at 1.15pm
Great stuff. I’m off to get some lunch but will be back just in time to see the covers go on again for the start of play.
The covers are off! Peep peep! No start time yet but it’s looking good for 1.10pm.
Rocky Flintoff is going well, 21 not out on his Championship debut at The Oval, although he was dropped on 13. Tanya is following his progress on the county blog.
“I was thankful to be at Old Trafford early enough yesterday in time for the tribute to Graham Thorpe, which as Taha Hashim rightly points out was lovely,” writes Andy Davies. “Can I give a big thumbs down though to the Old Trafford Stadium team, who didn’t stop the karaoke singer based just behind The Point from singing party songs throughout the tribute.
“The caterwauling was handily positioned behind what was at the time the only working screen in the ground, so it meant half of Athers words were drowned out by someone singing along to I Feel Good by James Brown and other songs of a similar ilk. Seemed to sum up quite a lot of the things which annoy me about the modern game, or should that be the modern sports entertainment experience?”
Is that right? That’s remarkably poor, and if this wasn’t a family website I’d be using a different word to ‘remarkably’. That’s bizarre.
“August, summer in England, 12 degrees and rainy,” begins Guy Hornsby. “It’s what we do, isn’t it Rob?I think we’ll get play after lunch though. It’s spitting at Old Trafford but the skies look better where the wind is coming from.
“I’m hobbling around the stands here on crutches after pinging my calf in the field for Sale 4ths on Sunday: proper old man energy. I’m 50 next year, so will it stop me playing? No, of course not. That’s for real people, not glorious cricket tragics. It’ll take more to stop me getting to the cricket!”
Oof, I’m sorry. I’ve only ever had one mild calf ping and that was more than enough.
Lunch at 12.30pm
The weather has improved a bit and everyone seems confident play will start around 1.10pm.
Duleep Mendis v Ian Botham (ii)
“For some reason, Botham started berating Gower after the third six had been launched into the crowd,” writes Marcus Abdullahi, “prompting one of the great lines from Jim Laker on comms: ‘I don’t really understand what he’s compaining about the whole time. You can’t have men in the crowd to catch ‘em.’
“It can be enjoyed here. (Vid set to right time.)”
No cricket here but there is at The Oval, where Rocky Flintoff, insert age here, is batting against Sam Curran and Dan Worrall on his Championship debut.
No inspection at 12pm
It’s raining again. 22 August it is. What happened to this thing?
Inspection at 12pm
The best-case scenario is probably an early lunch, with play starting at 1.10pm. It can continue until 7.30pm so if the weather holds we should get 60-70 overs.
“I see next summer’s fixtures have come out,” says James de Mellow. “Six Tests, six ODIs, six T20Is. Feels very slim. Do you think this is what the cricket public wants and what are Sky subscribers to do with their diminishing returns?”
It’s not all meh news though.
‼️BIG NEWS ‼️
England women will play India women in a one-off Test Match at Lord’s in 2026.
This will be the FIRST EVER women’s Test Match at the Home of Cricket.
File it under things we love to see 🙌 pic.twitter.com/Yusfl7vxTp
— Georgie Heath🎙️ (@GeorgieHeath27) August 22, 2024
The rain has stopped and the groundstaff are getting busy. They have plenty to do, so there’s no provisional start time yet.
Remember the name, etc
Rocky Flintoff, 16, is making his County Championship today for Lancashire against Surrey at The Oval. He could be in soon: Lancs are 9 for 1 after losing the toss.
Miller’s got the radar of doom out again, which can mean only one thing: it’s an Old Trafford Test. No, I’m still not over last year. At least this time it appears to the radar of hope.
It’s bleak, but there’s hope. Much like the global political outlook. Delayed start at Old Trafford but looking more promising for the rest of the day #ENGvSL pic.twitter.com/TKSPXbeXq0
— Andrew Miller (@miller_cricket) August 22, 2024
Sky are currently showing an extended masterclass with Nathan Lyon. As always it’s top-class, just terrific. If you can catch it online later, you should.
“If you’re really, REALLY bored during the inevitable rain breaks today then maybe you might be interested in an old blog of mine on the first Test between England and Sri Lanka in this country back in 1984,” writes Steven Pye. “The match at Lord’s was supposed to provide England with a bit of light relief after the battering they faced at the hands of the West Indies that summer, but it didn’t quite work out that way.”
Thanks Steve. It’s a great story, this, especially Duleep Mendis emasculating Lord Beefy. We covered it in an old Joy of Six as well.
The TMS overseas link is here. (Thanks to Ruth.)
Weather update It’s still November in Manchester. Can’t see there being any play before midday, and probably not before lunch.
Taha Hashim on Graham Thorpe
For the current England team, he wasn’t just a storied name from the past to emulate but someone who was perched in their dressing room until a couple of years ago, passing on advice as a coach. Ian Ward, Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain, his former colleagues, were on the field in the morning as part of Sky’s coverage, remembering both the cricketer and the man. When Hussain walked off at Lord’s with a century and the winning runs against New Zealand in his final Test, Thorpe was alongside him. He was there with Hussain when they won in Karachi, when they put on 288 against Australia at Edgbaston, when they were boys turning into men at Trent Bridge in 1993. And he was there when it was difficult, too.
Shoaib Bashir: I’m a cricket badger
Shoaib Bashir is chatting to Nasser Hussain, and he as impressive with his mouth as he is with the ball
It was a pretty positive day. We did well to take 10 wickets, specially when the ball got soft. There was some up-and-down bounce which helped me quite a bit. I didn’t expect to be bowling 23 overs on day one but I really enjoyed it.
I thought LBW and caught short leg were in the game. It helps when you’re trying to set up a batter if some ball spin and some go straight. You’ve got to spin the ball to get the drift; when I was younger I didn’t put as much on the ball.
[On putting a leg slip in for Dhananjaya] It was a mixture of Popey’s idea and my idea. I saw the ball drifting a lot so I wanted to bowl straighter, and luckily I got the reward.
I like watching different spinners round the world. I love cricket; sometimes people call me a badger. I watch Nathan Lyon quite a bit. I love the way he gets over the ball and how he’s so consistent.
Growing up I watched Ashwin and Lyon a lot, and Swanny in the UK. I was lucky enough to work with him in the Lions.
[On the grubber to Chandimal] Yeah that was part of the plan! It was weird. I didn’t expect that to happen.
It’s raining so the wicket won’t have much sun on it, so I think it’ll be similar to the first innings: it’ll turn and bounce more with the new ball. But you never know, some cracks might appear.
I really want to work on my batting. I want to be able to contribute, even at No11. We saw their No9 scored 70-odd yesterday, which is massive. I do want to add value.
Chris Woakes on his winter plans
As you get older, the more Test cricket you play, you pick up new skills, have more experience to fall back on and [are] a little bit wiser. That might be a good thing as well that I haven’t [played an away Test] in a little while. It gives you a fresh look on things.
Start delayed
The covers are on and the scene at Old Trafford belongs to November. “My home ground isn’t at its absolutely loveliest this morning…” chuckles Mike Atherton on Sky.
Read Simon Burnton on Captain Pope
The common criticism of Pope’s batting is that he is overly frenetic in the early stages of an innings, but in time settles down. It turns out that he captains in precisely the same way, though it took some time for him to be becalmed.
“Lawrence, always entertaining…”
“With Lawrence resuming this morning, there’s an excellent chance that Aggers will say ‘Lawrence, always entertaining’ in tribute to his old commentary partner’s giggling fit,” writes Oliver Haill. “Here’s hoping that Lawrence (Dan) will emulate his namesake Syd and hit a four over the wicketkeeper’s head too.”
Oliver, do stop it.
Preamble
It’s only gone and started raining in Manchester. Thankfully the forecast is better from around midday, so we should see plenty of cricket. England will resume on 22 for none, a deficit of 214 after an interesting first day at Old Trafford.
Sri Lanka’s last three wickets more than doubled their score, thanks mainly to a startlingly accomplished 76 from the debutant Milan Rathnayeke. He looks a No9 in name and a No7 in nature. His work is far from done, mind. Sri Lanka need Rathnayeke and the two Fernandos, Vishwa and Asitha, to exploit the Manchester clouds and expose England’s longish tail asap. Should be good fun!
