After a frenetic two and half days or so of Test cricket, Sri Lanka won the second Test against Sri Lanka by 229 runs to secure the Warne-Murali Trophy (named, of course, after Shane Warne’s famous mural).
Here are the ratings from the Second Test.
Fox Sports
Grade: F
Fox Sports have the rights to show the Sri Lanka versus Australia series. Unfortunately, they also have the rights to show the Caribbean T20 Premier League and, with a CPL T20 match running inexplicably long, Fox Sports chose to show the last over of that game instead of the first ball of the Australian Test.
Not a problem, of course, since nothing ever happens first ball of a Test, right?
Wrong. Because that enormous show-off Mitchell Starc took the wicket of Dimuth Karunaratne first ball of the match, caught by Joe Burns.
Or so we assume.
It was a disappointing start to the Test from the Australian broadcaster. But it was by no means the least disappointing Australian effort that would be seen during the Test.
Jon Holland
Grade: B
Speaking of disappointment, Jon Holland was selected in this Test to replace the injured Steven O’Keefe. He took just two wickets for the Test, and went for 133 runs, as Sri Lanka amassed 281 runs in their first innings on Day One and 237 runs in their second innings on Day Two.
This, of course, wasn’t the most unsatisfying thing about Jon Holland’s performance in his debut Test. The most unsatisfying thing about his performance was that, despite having Australian Test number 444, better known as two-thirds of the Number of the Beast, at no point did he seem to consider taking on the nickname of ‘Beelze’.
At one point in the Sri Lankan first innings, Mitchell Starc had figures of 4/44, presumably in honour of the selection of Jon ‘Beelze’ Holland. But then he went and clumsily took a fifth wicket.
So, presumably his 5/44 was in fact in honour of a cricketer one hundred debutants from now. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that it’s BBL fan favourite Guy Walker.
Australia’s day two
Grade: F
Australia began Day Two on 2/54. They somehow ended it at 3/25. That pretty much summed up their effort perfectly.
Acronyms
Grade: B+
But, as much as it makes for horrifying reading, it’s probably necessary to focus a little more deeply on what exactly took place on that calamitous Day Two for the visitors.
As mentioned above, they’d been 2/54 overnight, after losing their first wicket on the second ball of the innings, a one hundred per cent improvement on the Sri Lankan first wicket effort, and then lost Dave Warner on the last ball of the first day.
But on that second day, Australia doubled down on their ‘hopeless at playing spin’ persona. Which was pleasing to see. There’s surely no point in mixing things up at this late stage of the tour.
Unfortunately, this persona played perfectly into Sri Lanka’s nimble hands, as they’d selected approximately nine spinners for the Test. One of their best ones was the veteran Rangana Herath, who took a hat trick as part of his 4/35. It was a hat trick that culminated with a successful DRS review, which most traditionalists agree is the very best kind of hat trick.
Ultimately, Australia were bowled out in their first innings for just 106, having lost 9/52. The following acronyms were deemed appropriate by the ICC.
Australian fans: FFS
Sri Lankan fans: OMG
All other fans: LOL
Still, Angelo Mathews didn’t have the guts to declare at 0/0 and send Australia straight back in. In that sense, a grand moral victory for Australia.
And especially a grand moral victory for Nathan Lyon and Usman Khawaja, who came back in and went back out in the second innings to rack up two dismissals in just one day.
To be honest, it felt like many more Australians had achieved that feat than just those two.
It was easily the craziest day of Test cricket seen by Australian cricket fans since, oh, that one at the end of the previous Test.
Number one rankings
Grade: C
Day three went slightly better for the Australians, in the sense that not a single batsman was dismissed twice (apart from Adam Voges, who was given out caught in close, but reprieved by DRS, before being given out again in a less DRS-reprievable fashion, bowled behind his legs reverse-sweeping as part of some kind of tribute to how Glenn Maxwell would have attempted to save the Test, had he just been selected.)
Still, despite Australia’s massive improvement in losing a mere seven wickets on the third day, it was the Sri Lankans who were deemed the technical ‘victors’ of the Test match, for seemingly no other reason than the fact that they’d bowled the Australians out for fewer runs than they’d amassed.
Sri Lanka’s victory in this series means that Australia will once again lose their Number One Test ranking, either to Pakistan or India. Sometimes it feels like every time Australia’s Whack-A-Mole number one ranking pops up, there’s always a sub-contintental or Ashes tour-shaped mallet to hammer it back down again.
Still, I bet that Test champions mace felt pretty sweet for the week and a half Steve Smith got to hold it.
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