1-0! Lyon and Head - yep, Travis Head - rip through Sri Lanka for emphatic 10-wicket win

Green’s massive stride to the ball doesn’t hurt.

I didn’t think there was a choice anymore, just umpires’ decision?

Not that critical of Carey personally, but expect far better mental application and shot selection from your number 4.

Agree, discussion should be had. I would have thought if concussion replacements are allowed and the idea is for specialist replacement, it's up to teams to designate the specialist. If they go for a 'horse for a course' and that player fails, then that's the selection fault, not the rulemakers.

Of course they are not as good as their previous spin kings. Muttiah Muralitharan or Rangana Herath does not grow on trees. But then they do not need to be as good as their predecessors. In my opinion, even with under par performance, Sri Lankan spinners did not do bad. It is not that Australia scored five hundred. It was batting that made the difference. Sweeping is what we call western concept here, developed by batters outside sub continent to combat spin. Here batters used to be very strong back foot players with solid defense who could bat all day long. Gone are those days i believe. They probably expected Australia to crumble far faster than they did on that dust bowl. I was kind of surprised too watching almost all Australian batters deploying the sweep in either direction. It was unseen before.

Glancing at the match blog the other day it looked like Sweppo was having a shocker but good to see he wasn't. His best is better than even Lyon to me. He just needs to get that consistency he had in that Covid Shield year when he and Lyon went toe to toe for the whole season

I'm sure Poms will get routed this match.

Yes Kudos to Usman and Warner too. I think my point is, you’re more likely to score more runs, albeit a bit more slowly, if you play shots that you are mostly in control of. A lot of players can play sweeps with a fair degree of confidence you can keep them down. Carey was only about 2 out of 3 which is a bit of a lottery, and means he’s well short of mastering it.

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Umpires offered it. We accepted

Sure, I get you point, but I guess what I'm alluding to is the lack of actual guidelines to the rule; the pub-test as the main guiding principle, isn't much of a guide and opens up plenty of scope for dispute. For me, with this new sub-rule now in place, it seems like the actual implementation is being left to very dicey interpretation. I'm arguing that if Head has just taken 4, including the top 6, who says he isn't capable of taking more as a spinner?

Based on this first Test, for the next Test, noting it is at the same ground, I'd have Starc out in favour of Maxwell. As you say Dave, Cummins/Green can take the shine off the ball, if that is even needed - it was pretty much new ball bowling by the spinners yesterday. Starc *may* get some reverse swing, but even if that were to happen, the ball would need to be around 35 overs old and I'm not sure it would play a big part for too long - that's quite a bit of carry of a player for limited performance outcomes. Based on this recent match, the Lanakns will be more challenged by spin. So having Maxwell added to the mix, when then also adding in his batting to further bolster a score, would be the more sensible way to go IMO.

If the rule says something like you can replace like with like, and you have someone on the bench whose main role in Test and FC is to play as a spinner or as a bowler, then replacing with someone like Head who rarely bowls and is obviously principally there as a bat (and wouldn’t normally bowl ahead of Marnus even) wouldn’t pass the pub test. Which is what I mean by fair minded.

I agree the odds were not in Carey's favour, but also I thought it was the right way to play as hanging around by being more conservative/defensive, would probably also see his odds diminished re surviving. I said the same during Warner's innings at the time. On balance, whilst it would cost some their wickets, the odds were that one or two others would go further and all together that would allow Aus to challenge and surpass SL's 1st innings. That's what Carey did. Whilst getting a 50 by all would be an aim, it was far from guaranteed, on the law of averages, on that deck. Green was an exception - his technique was very good. Is it the advantage of his reach and nimbleness in his movement, that served him so well in those circumstances? Kudos to Usman too.

As suggested previously, I think we should seriously consider playing Holland instead of Starc if they prepare another wicket like this. Starc actually might be more use on these wickets than Pat given his reverse swing abilities, but that obviously won’t and shouldn’t happen. Quicks basically only needed to take the shine off, Green can do that.

Far better than the dubiously flat Pakistani pitches that were served up recently. I'd rather watch Australia lose in India & Sri Lanka on these pitches than try to avoid another boring draw in Pakistan.

Sri Lanka had all three main types - they’re just not very good compared to their previous spin kings.

Does the batting team still get a say for bad light?

Fantastic innings, judging by the highlights. Hitting one-handed sixes!

And that your spin bowlers are somewhere near the quality of the opposition’s.