With Australia 1-0 up in the series, Australia and Sri Lanka headed to Manuka Oval for the first ever Test match in Canberra.
Marcus Stoinis was added to the Australian squad, but turned out not to have the numbers to roll Kurtis Patterson and had to retreat to the back benches (ie the Melbourne Stars).
Here are the ratings for the second Test between Australia and Sri Lanka.
Centuries
Grade: B+
Tim Paine had immediate success with a restructured coin-tossing technique and chose to bat first. Despite Sri Lanka taking early wickets to have Australia 3/28, a triple-century partnership from Joe Burns and Travis Head soon put an end to any prospect of this being an interesting Test match.
It was easily the best Head-Burns work I’d seen since balding Barmy Army members went without hats and sunscreen during last year’s Gabba Test.
Just before tea on the first day, Burns became the first Australian to reach 99 this summer. Then, moments later, the first to reach a century. A match of milestones from Burns.
The Australian opener went on to make 180 before finally being bowled. Infuriating stuff from Joe Burns, mostly because that ‘e’ in his name ruins an otherwise perfect opportunity for a ‘Job: runs’ anagram.
And, of course, it wasn’t just Burns tonning up. In 2018, Australia scored just four centuries in Test matches. Here, they matched that annual tally in just one Test. Burns, Head and Patterson all reached three figures in the first innings before Usman Khawaja piled on a century of his own in the second.
It was hard to assess which was the best knock, but without getting too carried away, Patterson’s century took his Test average to 144, making him just about a Bradman and a half. So that’s handy.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
The Ashes
Grade: C
Tim Paine eventually declared at 5/534, as Australia took a stranglehold on the Test.
Meanwhile, over in the Caribbean, England had followed up their first Test defeat against the West Indies with a similarly disastrous batting performance in the second, as they tumbled to a ten-wicket loss.
Idea: In an overly busy international year, riddled with World Cup fixtures sure to sap the energy and attention of fans and players alike, why not have the 2019 Ashes instead be determined by comparing Australia’s performances versus Sri Lanka (6th ranked Test team) with England’s performances against the West Indies (8th ranked Test team).
It would save us all a lot of needless stress and sleepless nights and certainly seems to be the fairest and simplest way of determining the fate of the urn.
The West Indies: Ashes kingmakers. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Being hit in the head
Grade: F
During the Sri Lankan first innings, two batsmen, Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Perera, had to retire hurt after being struck in the head.
Please stop doing this, guys. It’s not clever or funny.
Haters
Grade: D
Mitchell Starc, meanwhile, took five wickets as Sri Lanka were all out for 215. One of these was a ‘hit wicket’ dismissal against Dhananjaya de Silva, which Pat Cummins noticed before the umpires. Bowler, batsman, fielder, square leg umpire, Alinta Energy salesman. Is there anything Cummins can’t do?
But, more importantly, Starc’s haul was then immediately reported as being a stunning rebuke to ‘the haters’.
This is so dumb. Does anybody who criticised Starc’s bowling this summer actually ‘hate’ him? I mean, yes, Shane Warne, seemingly and inexplicably. But anybody else?
Surely it’s possible to suggest that a cricketer may not be playing at the absolute peak of their potential without that assessment being triggered by unfettered hatred for that cricketer.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps irreparable blood feuds secretly drive all our cricketing opinions. But I’m sceptical. I think instead ‘haters’ is just lazy, binary shorthand for not blindly idolising every aspect of a player.
To put it another way, ‘haters’-haters going to hate the term ‘haters’.
Mitchell Starc sure did show those haters who don’t actually hate him. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)
Wicketkeepers
Grade: A-
Paine chose not to enforce the follow-on, instead batting again and giving Usman Khawaja an opportunity to score that century we talked about earlier.
It also gave Niroshan Dickwella an opportunity to emulate fellow wicketkeepers Rishabh Pant and Tim Paine in bantering away into the stump microphone. Dickwella’s material seemed to consist primarily of telling Khawaja that if he wasn’t careful he may end up like the Marsh brothers, which was a sick burn out of nowhere on two guys not even in the side.
Such a hater.
Still, given how popular with the fans all the chatter from the various glovemen has been this summer, it’s surely only a matter of time until the various broadcasters take it one step further.
My proposal: ‘Keep ‘Em Laughing’, a reality competition TV show featuring Pant, Paine, Dickwella and qualifying keepers from other international cricket nations performing their best banter behind the stumps, live in front of a studio audience. Who goes through to the next round? Vote via SMS to have your say.
Fox Cricket? Channel Seven? You know where to find me.
Hmmm? Oh, yes. The rest of this Test. Tim Paine declared again and set Sri Lanka 516 to win. They did not get there, falling a heartbreaking 367 runs short.
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