Australia defeat rain and trounce Sri Lanka

Australia lost only 4 wickets while Sri Lanka lost 20 in a match which extended, thanks to rain and bad light (as adjudged by the ultra cautious umpires), to the penultimate session.

Australia's batting was awesome. I thought that Phil Jaques was very shaky at first but he persisted and eventually flourished, while everyone else who batted: Hayden, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke and Symonds, was in form. And Adam Gilchrist didn't need to come to the wicket.

The result, notwithstanding sterner resistance from the Sri Lankans in their second innings, confirms that Australia are well on the way to adjusting to the retirements of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Brett Lee clearly relished his new role as the spearhead of the attack, Mitchell Johnson made a good debut, Stuart Clark carried on more or less from where he'd left off last year, while Stuart McGill, if not a Warne clone, was not supported well in the field and - apology for the cliche - bowled better than his figures indicated.

Scorecard.

Sri Lankans fight hard without dominating: First test Day 1

On a rain affected Brisbane day Australia has put together 3/242 from 76 overs. The highlight of course was Phil Jacques's century, which looked most unlikely as he took 34 balls to get off the mark.

The Sri Lankans persevered and never let the game get away from them, despite a few loose overs (mainly from Dilhara Fernando) and some fielding lapses. Even so, they would have hoped to be better placed after winning the toss and asking Australia to bat.

Scorecard.

Redbacks win a game at last

It took them until the last ball but South Australia did defeat NSW by 5 wickets tonight at the Adelaide Oval.

I was there for two periods of play: the middle overs of the NSW, and the middle and final overs of the SA, innings. The Blues batted relatively slowly against a tight Redbacks attack. Even if the wicket was less batter-friendly than usual it did not require great prescience to predict that 7/233 would be a winning score.

And so it proved, though the Redbacks middle order made heavy work of scraping the last few runs after Matthew Elliott (83/113b) and Darren Lehmann (a quickfire 34/32b including a magnificent flat batted pull shot for 6) had set up victory. Nathan Bracken bowled magnificently in the last few overs while Stephen O'Keefe, Nathan Hauritz and Doug Bollinger held the Redbacks in check for most of their respective spells. Unusually for a limited overs game, the run rate really slowed in the last few overs as the Redbacks took their time to get not only the run levelling the scores but also the winning one.

Scorecard.

Return to Test cricket

I returned from England last week to be confronted with several days of cool and intermittently wet weather, ie not especially conducive to cricket.

In my absence South Australia has started its season poorly with two losses in four day games to Victoria at home and Tasmania (including Ricky Ponting) away.

On the international scene, Australia this week begins its first Test match since January this year with a game against Sri Lanka at the Gabba. The home team will start favourites, as Sri Lanka will not be at full strength (Kumar Sangakarra is injured), but on paper should be able to give Australia ( both the team and the cricket public) a good game.

Away from the action

I'm in London visiting family at the moment and so am not in close touch with the Australian cricket scene.

I have however read on Cricinfo that South Australia began its first class season earlier this week with a drubbing at the hands of Victoria. Just like last year.

The scorecard suggests that neither SA's batting or, more surprisingly, its bowling are of a standard likely to push other teams hard in the Pura Cup four day competition.

Brief mentions

International cricket

In recent weeks cricket has been overshadowed, at least in local media coverage, by other sporting events, eg the AFL and NRL finals and the Rugby World Cup quarter finals (where Australian vaunting and puffing on a scale not seen since Glenn McGrath predicted a 5- 0 result in the 2005 Ashes series received a sharp reality check).

Nevertheless the international cricket round continues and today India defeated Australia by 8 runs at Chandigarh, thereby keeping the seven match series alive. Australia 2, India 1, washout 1, with 3 to play.

On paper India look good. Australia have fielded a relative newcomer, James Hopes, and used Brad Haddin as a stopgap batter, but the team has, at least until today, exposed the limitations of the Indian attack.

I will not venture a prediction about the outcome of the rest of this series, but will look forward to India's visit here later this season.

Domestic cricket

A couple of reminders today that the local season will soon be upon us. The Australian lists ( or tucks away) in the Weekend Scoreboard section on p24 all the first class team squads including changes from last season. Alas, this isn't online: the nearest thing seems to be on the Cricket Australia website (and this requires a lot of clicking and scrolling to access). Tonight on ABC TV I also heard an ad promo for this year's ABC Cricket Magazine (but can't find any mention of it on the ABC website).

Colours lowered

The title of my previous post was not intended to put the knockers on Port Adelaide in the AFL final, though their colours were certainly lowered metaphorically by Geelong, and literally by a supporter, as the photo above which I took yesterday in the Adelaide Hills shows (apologies for the picture quality: I'm still coming to terms with a new camera).

PS I've now posted the answer to the question as an update to my previous post.