No Play Galle

Wet conditions prevented Sri Lanka and India from getting any play in today at Galle, in the first test of India's tour. Who is more likely to be frustrated, Sri Lanka or India?

Looking over previous Galle tests, you'd have to think it was Sri Lanka. They made an excellent start, and half of those teams whose first innings total was 250 or more went on to win the match here.

The only loser was a 2001 West Indian side, despite a 178 from Brian Lara. Loose bowling and a top-order collapse in the second innings ended their chance of a victory. Reading the match commentary, it looks as if Captain Hooper's tactics were a little faulty.

India managed to win a match here over four days in 2008 after making 329 in their first innings, so Sri Lanka still have some hope, provided the weather co-operates.

Lord's Collapsed

Way back in 2004, Phil and I devised a method of defining what exactly a collapse in cricket was.

The working definition we came up with was:

A collapse occurs when three or more wickets fall for 60 or fewer runs, with no partnership adding more than 35 runs.

Well, looking at the current test at Lord's we see a lot of collapsing going on.

In their first innings, Australia suffered a collapse when wickets 4 through 9 went for 51.

In their first innings, Pakistan never really stopped collapsing:
Collapse #1 Wickets 1-3 54/3;
Collapse #2 Wickets 3-5 29/3;
Collapse #3 Wickets 5-9 58/5;
Collapse #4 Wickets 7-10 31/4.

And then Australia collapsed again in their second innings: Wickets 2-4, 36/3.