England v Sri Lanka, 3rd Test, Lord's, day 4 - Sri Lanka's ill luck, Alex Hales' good luck

What is so special about this Alex Hales? I don’t find anything special in his batting. He is just a Twenty20 product and well suited for the bastard offspring of one-day cricket. Some of the fans and experts at the social media have always praised Hales highly, but why? There are better players than Hales in England. A player who gives the opposition so many options while scoring just 94 runs, can’t be regarded as a Test material.

Hales’ composure? What is the definition of composure? How the hell a Twenty20 joker can provide composure? At times, the lady luck is too biased.  

Yeah, yeah, you can say fortune favours the brave or such things are a part of the game and even I endorse such thoughts, but at least the manner of stroke-play and technique do matter while judging a batsman.

Lady luck was not impressed with Nuwan Pradeep’s efforts yesterday. The guy bowled his heart out at Lord’s, but all I can say, he was the victim of some poor umpiring – victim of Tucker’s no ball call for a borderline delivery after dismissing Hales, who was batting on 58 and then the day before yesterday, had Dimuth Karunaratne clung on to a low chance to his left, while Hales was on 19,  at second slip and again on 39, shortly before the close, when he glanced Pradeep down the leg side only for Dinesh Chandimal to grass the chance. Poor fielding by the Sri Lankans, bad luck for Pradeep and lady luck’s flying kiss for Hales.

Alastair Cook went for quick runs as England stretched the lead further more and then declared to allow Sri Lanka to chase 362 runs to win the final Test. Cook declared the innings while batting on 49 and it was an attacking declaration. Would he have done the same if the series was not secured? I don’t think so. In fact, you don’t find such attacking captains these days.

Sri Lanka’s response to Rod Tucker’s poor decision by hanging their national flag on the Lord’s balcony till they were requested to put it down, conveyed the message of their fighting spirit and team unity despite the series of ill-lucks or should I say, poor umpiring made the day quite an eventful one.

The Sri Lankan chase should be a cracking one rather than a damp squib for the betterment of Test cricket.    

Thank You

Faisal Caesar