The English Ass(h)es

Another Ashes season has begun - and like most, it began with a lot of expectations. England were going in without their talisman (Stokes), so, it looked like winning was going to be difficult. But then 2 new players called Vince and Stoneman, showed that England might just have a chance to win!
False signals it turned out. England lost the test by 10 wickets - mainly due to average bowling and really bad batting. There were a lot of sidelights that impacted the game - Bairstow headbutting Bancroft (much much earlier in the tour) , Moeen Ali given out stumped due to the line being of uneven width.... but they seriously cannot take away the fact that Australia played well and England played bad. With the way the English are playing, it seems unlikely that even Stokes will revive them. Sure, England might win a Test in this series (maybe 2 if they are lucky) , but it looks sort of impossible for them to win the series.
I will be watching the remaining 4 matches with my face covered I guess!

An Away match on a domestic pitch!!

The pitch has a lot of grass, the fast bowlers have showed the India top order it's place (except for Cheteshwar Pujara, who batted sanely), the bowl is swinging and the Indian lower order has pitched in with some useful runs! All this is expected to happen on the India tour of South Africa! Except for, it's happening here in India!
On Day 3 of India's first test against SL (Eden Gardens, Kolkata), India have finished their first innings on 172 while SL are fighting on 109/2. SL won and chose to bowl ; the pitch looked like it would assist fast bowlers and it did! India only have the rains to thank (and maybe curse) for the fact that the match has reached Day 3. The pitch has eased today making batting easier - maybe, if India had gotten all out on Day 1 itself and SL had batted, India would have had a better chance.
But now, it looks like SL have a chance of not only winning this Test, but also, maybe a chance of winning this series. That would be historic - SL winning a Test series in India! Lets hope that does not happen.
Interestingly, we have seen recent ODI series where the team winning the toss has chosen to bat first, rather than chase and sort of succeed. We are now seeing a Test match where the team is choosing to bowl first and risk batting on the last day. The situation used to be reverse atleast some time back (or maybe , I need to analyze the results and the tosses better).
Here's hoping for more interesting Test matches :)