For England this was a weary, slightly seasick way to end the Test match summer. Not weary in the literal sense, although Chris Woakes looked tired and an injured Gus Atkinson was pointlessly over-bowled as Sri Lanka completed a beautifully clinical eight-wicket victory at the Oval.
But weary of spirit, weary of spectacle, filled with red-ball Weltschmerz. It was a strange, oddly tension-less day all round. Is this the promised end or vision of that horror? Dunno. But Pathum Nissanka is batting like a god. The Oval food court is half empty. Sri Lanka flags are flying in the freezing air of the Bedser Stand. There was life here. But what else is in that mix?
This third and final Test was described quite often over its four days as feeling very end-of-term, that last morning where everyone plays Connect 4 and watches Kung Fu Panda 3. As Jerusalem echoed around the empty seats at 11.05am on a chilly September morning, it felt more end-of-days, the cracks starting to show in a summer sport that is in the process of collapsing in on itself.
Related: Ollie Pope admits England were ‘not good enough’ in defeat by Sri Lanka
From an England point of view, this Test has been a nauseating spectacle at times.
This is not to underestimate how well Sri Lanka played. There was something heartening and also joyful in the fourth-innings batting of Nissanka, who produced a thrilling, high-craft, beautifully compact century off 107 balls.
Nissanka reached that mark with a sublime back-foot clip, taking off his helmet and drinking in a really lovely moment in his own career. More widely, it is just a great thing that a nation that has been excluded from Test cricket’s top table, whose talent must constantly weigh up the lure of the franchise circuit, is still producing cricketers of such skill and discipline, with such an obvious love for the hardest format.
Sri Lanka’s fast bowling on day three was equally compelling, the other point where this match was won. Its energy felt significant, too. This was the performance of a team who felt, perhaps, that they were being a little underrated, a little disrespected by these high-rolling opponents.
Let’s just say it. There were elements of this Test from England that felt a little piss-takey. And this is dangerous ground for a spectacle that depends entirely for its legitimacy on feeling like it matters, and which, lest we forget, still funds English cricket’s other ambitions.
You could start with playing Dan Lawrence as an opener. Basically this was a selection that happened because he’s our mate and he’s due a go, and because it’s Sri Lanka and we’ll win this anyway. It is hard to think of a top-class batter less suited to negotiating the nibbly new ball outside off stump. Some have said Lawrence looked a little desperate in his final innings here. Maybe he was just annoyed.
The bowling attack wasn’t piss-takey per se, but its management was. A weary Woakes, a returning Stone, a gangly left-arm novice and the spin tyro Bashir: this is not yet a high-class Test attack. So why act as though it is? Throwing runs away bowling spin in bad light. Showing such a lack of care while failing to set a proper target in the third innings. This was all pretty slack and yeah-whatever.
It leaves a bad taste too. Before this game Brendon McCullum said it “didn’t really matter” how Josh Hull did. But it does matter. Tickets are expensive. They pay for all this. That’s fine. But it has to feel like elite sport, not a laugh with the lads or long-term prep for the series that actually matters to your personal legacy. This is the kind of management and captaincy that deserves to lose to a more disciplined team.
And what about that management? Where are we now with the dominant vibes regime? Throughout the Saturday of this game the big screen kept flashing up an advert for Bazball: The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution, an excellent and finely detailed book on the changes in England’s Test playing style of the past few years.
But it was also impossible not to see a little gallows humour in the notion of warm blood and the white heat of change during a Test where the joins in this thing have really started to show. For all its fun notes, Bazball can never be a revolution or a reimagining, because the host body is dying. This is the band playing on while the ship goes down, a group of people having fun while the game is still there.
The first day at the Oval coincided with formal confirmation of the sale of the Hundred franchises, also known as the outsourcing of the month of July to a bunch of hedge funders. There was the absurdity of bad light, of a sport that really does go the extra mile to alienate its paying customers.
Meanwhile England’s managing director of cricket could be heard on the BBC talking in cultlike terms about McCullum’s telekinetic abilities, the way even at a barbecue he will “subtly nudge you in the right direction with subliminal messaging”. Perhaps McCullum’s extra-sensory messaging explains his failure to show up in person at the Oval to explain this defeat to the public.
This is not to blame the players, who can hardly be held responsible for enjoying themselves while their administrators tell them that this event basically doesn’t matter, that it is simply a September whipround for those still willing to pay. But how long will that part last?
There are ways of losing at cricket. There was a moment towards the end with England by now being Lazballed into submission, just after Nissanka had larruped his second six over the two fielders back for the hook, where Ollie Pope walked past and had a little bit of banter with Sri Lanka’s batsmen.
Is that a good thing? Is it meant to look like fun at that stage? Empty seats here, empty seats at Lord’s. There is a necessary suspension of disbelief in all sport. The spectacle has to matter, has to make you want to chew through your umbrella handle, to feel engaged and wanted, to care about the stakes. The show will keep rolling on for as long as people want it. But this was a sloppy, oddly careless way to end a lukewarm summer.
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