England v Sri Lanka First Test Report Card, Day Two

Featuring natural ecological reactions and ABBA-loving law firms

Natural Ecological Reactions
Grade: D

The second day began with the return of the infamous Manchester rain. You may remember the rain from last year’s Ashes, which helped secure Australia the urn. Good bloke, the Manchester rain.

Or so we thought. Because its return here didn’t have the welcome comic impact of scuttling England’s resurgence in an Ashes series, an especially satisfying intervention when the Bazball thinktank had proclaimed not to have been taking the heavily predicted rain into consideration and batted on far too long because the last time inclement weather had been forecast and threatened to ruin their plans, it hadn’t shown up and they’d been able to play golf anyway, or some damn thing.

No, this time it just meant a lack of play for a session or so. Who needs that?

But perhaps I’ve misunderstood the Manchester rain completely. Perhaps it’s a natural ecological reaction to the modern England team’s tendency to score like absolute raving lunatics.

“Look here,” the Manchester rain is saying. “We can’t have you lot scoring 400 runs in a day all the time, and if you’re going to persist in attempting to do so, I’m just going to keep shortening the days until you realise how foolhardy you’re being.”