mvaughan

We started the summer's tipping well and I've been racking my brains trying to think of a Test Match that I was involved in as a player that had the sort of late drama witnessed on Monday evening. The best I could come up with was when Marcus Trescothick and I had six overs to chase 50 in the final session of the 3rd Test in June 2002. Our opponents? Sri Lanka. We did it with an over to spare despite facing Muttiah Muralitharan when he was at his peak. And they say I wouldn't have made a good T20 player!

Still, that wasn't a patch on what happened last week. Andy Flower said he thought England had about a 3% chance of bowling them out when they took to the field. He may be a great coach and was a fantastic batsman but he's no odds-compiler; England were matched at 1000.0 on Betfair at one stage. What that did prove though was that this England side are made of pretty stern stuff and have the confidence and belief to get positive results when the odds are stacked against them. And for six or seven years now they've been brilliant in English conditions; just look at their results. They're as tough to beat in England as India are on their own patch. Are they the "toughest team on the planet" as Sri Lanka coach Stuart Law described them, even before the First Test? No. India are simply because they're the top ranked Test team in the world. If and when England overtake them then yes, I'll agree with Law on that count.

I must admit I haven't seen much of Jade Dernbach although I hear he bowled with great discipline and intent in a recent Lions match. And I don't think I'll be seeing any more of him this week because I'm sure Steve Finn will come in to replace James Anderson, rather than the Surrey man. I've heard a few suggestions that Finn and Chris Tremlett may be a little too similar but I'm not sure I agree with that. They're fine bowlers who can both vary their line and length when needed and will offer different challenges to the Sri Lanka batsmen. Besides, there's sometimes a danger of thinking things over too much. The number one rule before going into a Test match is to start by picking your four best bowlers before considering anything else and I don't think anyone can argue that at the minute that means Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Tremlett and Finn.

Lord's has always been a good wicket and also a very successful hunting ground for England in recent times. Logic dictates that with the England batsmen in the sort of form they're in we can trust them to make a huge score and eventually take 20 wickets, especially given that good weather has been forecast for most of the five days. That's taking an overly simplistic look at the situation though and there are two good reasons why I'd be wary of piling into England at 1.7 pre-match. For starters, Sri Lanka could bat first and put on a big first innings score. You can't keep players of the class of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara out of the runs for too long whilst skipper Tillekaratne Dilshan batted well in the first innings. HAPW Jayawardene scored a first-innings century and TT Samawareera got to 50 so we can conceivably expect some sort of backlash from their batsmen.

The second scenario has England batting first. If they happen to lose a couple of early wickets they'll drift but the more likely scenario is that they'll start very brightly again. Good news for England would-be backers? Well, you'd think so but the Betfair market may be afraid that the wicket is actually too good to produce a result and we'd then see the England price drift a little and the draw price shortening. Either way, an initial lay of England at 1.7 with a view to backing at 2.0 or bigger would be the way I'd approach this.

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