High scoring draw for England under 19s.

 Posted by Tony Hutton

Sunday 28th August was the first day of the four-day Second Under 19 Test Match between England and Sri Lanka at the County Ground, Derby. A disappointingly small crowd were present to take advantage of free admission and free parking. Sri Lanka had managed to win the first game of the series last week by three wickets at Chelmsford, by chasing down 276 on the final day after high scoring first innings by both sides.

Captains about to make the toss at Derby.

Umpires Warren and Lungley ready with boxes of spare balls.

Play gets underway at Derby.

Several team changes by England and our interest was very much in the three Durham players, skipper Ben McKinney, Ross Whitfield and Stanley McAlindon, together with Ben Cliff the Yorkshire opening bowler. Two Lancastrians also present in Harry Singh and Matt Hurst, who both made a major contribution after rather a poor start by England. They came together when England had lost McKinney, Whitfield and Rew from Somerset, with the total on 60.

McKinney and Singh open for England.

The two both started carefully against the varied Sri Lankan bowling attack, in which left arm spinner Kumara took two early wickets, having McKinney caught at slip and Whitfield caught and bowled. They batted for most of the rest of the day with Hurst the more adventurous of the two. He reached his century during a partnership of 202 and was out for 116 shortly before the end of the day. Singh, played the sheet anchor role and was left stranded on 98 not out overnight, with the total on 268-4.

The Lancastrian pair of Singh and Hurst.

We were not present during the remainder of the game, but were pleased to see Singh complete his century on the live stream the following morning. England were all out for 381, with a useful 52 from Sales of Northamptonshire (son of a famous father). However they were then batted out of the game by Sri Lanka who totalled 542, with a century from Daniel together with four other half centuries and a 49. England managed to bat out for a draw without too much trouble on the final day with 249-5.

Two Sri Lankan bowlers acknowledge the applause.

Good to see runs for the two Durham boys - 74 from McKinney and 63 from Whitfield. We did not get the chance to see England bowl, but obviously the two spinners Majid from Surrey and Foreman from Sussex both got a long bowl with 36 and 41 overs respectively during the long Sri Lankan innings.

Model forward defensive shot perfected by Harry Singh.

Difficult to predict which of the England players might make the grade in the future. Many of the first choice players were absent due to either Royal London Cup commitments with their counties or appearing in the 100 competition. However the Northern contingent certainly did themselves no harm and will hopefully get further opportunities in the one day competitions with Sri Lanka coming up shortly.