Pringle: The Lord’s slope has so much say
The Lord’s slope – a hill to breeze down for some, a mountain to climb for others... The drop, and it is discernible from ground level, is 8ft 2ins from the Grandstand in the north-west part of the ground to the Mound stand in the south-east. It would barely stir Sherpa Tenzing’s heart rate yet what merry havoc it played yesterday with England’s top-order, who suddenly found themselves 84 for four on a Lord’s flattie.
Let’s take its victims in order of dismissal. Alex Hales, trying hard to think, eat and sleep like a Test batsman, has still not cracked the transition as his dismissal showed. Scoreless for 22 balls, he had a big heave at Rangana Herath’s fourth ball of the innings, somehow toe-ending it to Angelo Mathews at slip.
Unusually, given the slope runs counter to the direction Herath, a left-arm spinner, is trying to turn it, Mathews had brought Herath on from the Pavilion End. It certainly confused Hales, who, having watched Cook play three balls that did not turn, decided to give the spinner the January sales treatment – in that everything must go.
His leg-side hack was a combination of frustration, at being marooned on 18 for 25 minutes, a presumption that the slope would take the ball down the hill onto the middle of his bat, and a reversion to his aggressive, white-ball self.
It was only Hales’ third game at Lord’s so the slope, while not a complete novelty, would still pose challenges. Back when the fall away was bigger (the relaying of the outfield a dozen years ago saw it reduced by a few feet), Middlesex proved hard to beat here. Their bowlers knew which line to bowl, while their batsmen had a better idea than the opposition which balls to play and which to leave alone.
Nick Compton is on his second stint with Middlesex, so he should know those strictures well. Unhappily for him, his mind looks all over the place and he was undone by a shot that no Middlesex veteran, of sound mind and body, would attempt unless they’d already reached fifty.
Facing Suranga Lakmal, bowling from the Nursery End, Compton planted his front foot (a little bit late), then tried to drive a ball at least eight inches outside off-stump, on the up. Given the slope was only ever likely to take it away from him, he should have left it well alone. But Compton, who knows he is in the ‘Last Chance Saloon’, craves the comfort of ball on bat at the moment – though he is not alone in that.
If that was a bad error for someone who knows the vicissitudes here well, Joe Root’s dismissal was almost as poor, at least from a shot selection versus slope point of view. Lakmal, who was bizarrely omitted from Sri Lanka’s original touring party, fired an effort full and straight.
On a level playing field, as opposed to this one, Root’s attempted clip off his legs would have seen the fielder picking the ball up from the mid-wicket fence. But this is Lord’s and the ball came down the slope just enough to defeat the bat, but not the fact that it was going to hit legstump, even if umpire Rod Tucker thought it was going on to miss. Mathews, who has played here before, reviewed the not-out decision, which was overturned, and Root was on his way for his second failure of the series berating himself for not playing straighter.
James Vince is also under pressure to deliver an innings of significance, though
On a level playing field, Root’s attempted clip would have seen the fielder picking the ball up from the fence. But this is Lord’s and the ball came down the slope enough to defeat the bat
there were mitigating circumstances that he did not do so here. This was only his second first-class innings at Lord’s and it was ended by a ball that would have undone most right-handers batting at the Nursery End.
Nuwan Pradeep is no Glenn McGrath, but he produced one of those deliveries that McGrath specialised in when taking 26 wickets here in three Tests.
McGrath bowled almost exclusively from the Pavilion End, the choice for most match-winning bowlers. With his pace and precision, he would aim the ball about six inches outside off-stump and let the ball, the batsmen’s minds and the slope do the rest.
It proved a lethal combination. If the ball nipped down the hill, lbw and bowled came into play. It if held its line, the outside edge beckoned. As I said, Pradeep is no McGrath though the ball he trimmed Vince’s off bail with was certainly worthy of him.
Of course, McGrath’s control would not have started the line so straight (it was around off-stump) but the way Pradeep’s held its line, and the way it defeated Vince who, expecting it to follow the contours and nip in to him, played down the Bakerloo, was a thing of beauty. Indeed, so faint was the clipping of ball on bail that the initial appeal was for a caught behind, though that soon changed when the debris was spotted.
Not everything behaves to order and Pradeep later dismissed Cook lbw with one from the Nursery End that the England captain had been milking for four earlier in the day.
Cook does not miss many off his legs and this one, from around the wicket, should have been meat and drink to him. He’d batted nigh on four hours when he missed it, a touch of fatigue forcing his head to fall over just a touch.
Apart from the Lord’s slope dictating how batsmen should bat and bowlers bowl, it also has an effect on fielding, especially catching. Without the drop off, the flick off his legs that Jonny Bairstow played off Pradeep when he was on 11 would have been a difficult skimming catch if it carried at all. But at Lord’s, standing down slope, the ball carried knee high, something that appeared to take Shaminda Eranga by surprise.
Down it went and on went Bairstow, not for the first time the nemesis to a fielding side’s early ambition.