Sri Lanka v England - Keystone Cops calamity real worry for future of Test cricket

That pretty much summed up the opening day of the two-match series against Sri Lanka in Galle.

It was a poor advertisement because Sri Lanka batted atrociously to be dismissed for 135 in 46.1 overs after winning the toss.

Yorkshire’s Dom Bess took five wickets, but it was - and intending no disrespect to Bess - one of the easiest five-fers you are likely to see, considering that two wickets fell to reverse sweeps, one to a filthy long-hop, another to a rebound catch off short-leg’s boot and another to a loose drive.

Stuart Broad claimed 3-20 (as many Test wickets as on his previous three tours to Sri Lanka combined), Jack Leach took 1-55, and Leach ran out the other player when he diverted a drive on to the stumps at the non-striker’s end. In reply, Yorkshire’s Joe Root (66) and Jonny Bairstow (47) shared an unbroken 110 to guide their side to 127-2 at stumps, the game already done and dusted barring a miracle.

Bess, who took 5-30, was refreshingly candid in his post-play assessment.

“I didn’t feel like I bowled very well,” he said. “I was actually quite nervous. I hadn’t really bowled since the Test matches last summer.

“I was pretty nervous and there was that short rubbish one that got cut (when Niroshan Dickwella carved straight to backward-point). I didn’t feel I bowled as well as I know I can, but that’s cricket, I guess. There might be days that I bowl exceptionally well and get 1-100.”

Bess will need to bowl better when the show moves on to India next month, by which time he should be well into his stride in terms of rhythm and flow.

This felt a bit like taking sweets off children; all Bess really had to do was wheel his arm over and wait for a mistake, with the home team only too happy to oblige.

On this evidence, you do worry for the future of Test match cricket beyond the leading nations when Sri Lanka perform as poorly as this.

Their cricket is now a world away from the great days of Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Muralitharan, et al.

Most of the wickets were simply the result of batsmen unable or unwilling to display the necessary application needed to succeed in the five-day game.

Granted, there were mitigating factors - a lack of first-class cricket in recent times, the whole Covid situation, injuries, preparation time, blah, blah, blah.

But, in an era in which T20 franchise cricket is all the rage, the knock-on effects are also obvious; reverse-sweeps, for example, undoubtedly have their place in the white-ball game; less so on the opening day of a Test series when your side is under pressure on a pitch providing spin.

For an object lesson in how to bat at Test level and apply yourself properly, Sri Lanka needed to look no further than Root and Bairstow.

They played sensible, low-risk cricket to take England to within a whisker of gaining a first-day advantage, something that does not happen very often after you have lost the toss, the pair defending the good balls, picking off the bad, and ensuring that the early loss of Dom Sibley and Zak Crawley did not continue the theme of tumbling wickets.

Sibley was caught at slip defending with a crooked bat, Crawley gave it away by skying to mid-off, and with Dan Lawrence carded to come in at No 5 on debut, having earlier dropped a catch, things could potentially have got problematic against the home team’s spinners.

But Root registered his 50th half-century on his 98th Test appearance, and Bairstow moved to within a whisker of his 22nd in his 71st game.

They took the sting out of the situation with an ease that will be familiar to the Yorkshire members who watched them flourish in tandem together in the formative stages of their careers at Headingley.

Both certainly had strong motivations going into day two - Root to improve his much talked-about conversion rate; Bairstow to try and cement his place back in the Test XI.

At least we can thank Sri Lanka for one thing, for some of their dismissals were so poor that they provided light-hearted relief in these stricken times.

No less comical was their failure to run-out Crawley early in England’s reply when they made a total hash of a gilt-edged chance.

England might as well have been facing the Keystone Cops.

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