This Week in Cricket #160 - The shambles in Noida, Sri Lanka beat England & the Fraser-McGurk question

In this episode of the show, we discuss the abandoned Test in Greater Noida between Afghanistan and New Zealand, Sri Lanka’s win against England, India’s squad to face Bangladesh and a the England v Australia bilateral T20 series. We start the show with a rant about the shambles that saw no play between the Black Caps and Afghanistan, but instead featured cutting up of the outfield, household fans and quite a bit of rain. Could this have been avoided? Or do we chalk it up to unseasonable weather and move on with our lives? It’s then time to heap praise on Sri Lanka for their comfortable victory in the third Test against England – a result that looked unlikely after a light-affected Day 1. Pathum Nissanka and Kamindu Mendis shone with the bat, as well as Lahiru Kumara and Vishwa Fernando, in a win that keeps their World Test Championship dreams alive. For England, we ponder whether this was just a bad few days at the office or something more concerning. We discuss Harry Brook, a relatively inexperienced seam attack and whether Dan Lawrence will ever play for England again. To round out the show, we look at India’s squad for their upcoming Test series against Bangladesh, as well as a few over-reactions after Game 1 of the England v Australia T20 series (which Liam Livingstone must have heard before Game 2!). We'll be back again next week with more news and reviews from around the world. Until then please take the time to give us a like, follow, share or subscribe on all our channels (@toporderpod on Twitter & Facebook, and @thetoporderpodcast on Instagram & YouTube) and a (5-Star!) review at your favourite podcast provider, or tell a friend to download. It really helps others find the show and is the best thing you can do to support us. You can also find all our written content, including our Hall of Fame series, at our website. You can also dip back into our guest episodes - including conversations Mike Hesson, Shane Bond and Mike Hussey, current players such as Matt Henry, Sophie Devine and Ish Sodhi, coaches Gary Stead, Jeetan Patel and Luke Wright, as well as Barry Richards, Frankie Mackay, Bharat Sundaresan and many more fascinating people from all across the cricketing world. And if you'd like to reach out to us with feedback, questions or guest suggestions, get in touch at thetoporderpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. 0:00 Intro 1:05 The shambles in Noida - should we have seen some cricket between Afghanistan & the Black Caps? 9:00 Sri Lanka beat England - did England get complacent? 14:15 Did Sri Lanka find an effective counter to Bazball? 18:35 Sri Lanka outbowled England 23:10 Shoaib Bashir chat 26:40 Will Dan Lawrence play Test cricket again? 29:35 Pathum Nissanka and Kamindu Mendis were excellent 31:50 England v Australia first T20 - Jake Fraser-McGurk and Liam Livingstone in the spotlight 44:10 India v Bangladesh - Can in-form Bangladesh give India's balanced squad a run for their money? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices