England’s assistant coach Paul Collingwood has drawn comparisons between wk-batter Jamie Smith to Australia great Adam Gilchrist as he took control of the third test of Sri Lanka’s tour of England 2024 on Sunday.
Smith scored 67 runs in England’s second innings, but Sri Lanka scored 94/1 by the stumps chasing the target of 219 and are keeping their chances alive in next year’s ICC WTC finals.
England already secured series victory 2-0 in a three-match series, suffered a top-order collapse as they were down to the last three wickets as they smashed 82/7 runs on the third day.
Smith’s outstanding 50-ball display, including 10 fours and a six, on his home ground helped them recover to 156 all out in their second innings.
On this occasion, England all-rounder Collingwood compared Smith to Gilchrist saying that he sees the same qualities in rising star Smith.
Leading the fightback! 👊 pic.twitter.com/NSB0OpDzrx
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) September 8, 2024
“He is certainly an entertainer,” Collingwood told. “You go back to the days of Adam Gilchrist when he came in at seven for Australia. He is going to put a lot of teams under pressure when you have the skills and the power he has.
“It sucks the life out of the opposition when someone has the ability to do something like that. He’s certainly shown some great skills in his short Test career.” – ‘Not one of our better days’ –
While Collingwood admitted Sri Lanka in the box seat cling to victory in the third test, he thinks his team is still capable of pulling claiming the nine remaining wickets and registering the series sweep.
“It certainly hasn’t been one of our better days of Test cricket this year,” said Collingwood. “It’s pretty easy to make the excuse and say it’s complacency but there’s plenty of fun and desire in there.
“We wanted a clean sweep. The lads are very proud of playing for England, so there’s certainly been no complacency coming into this match. The guys in the dressing room will hold their hands up.”
While speaking up about the third test “We still have an opportunity to go and win the match,” he said. “There’s enough in the pitch to get nine wickets but we need a lot of things to go our way.”
“If you look at the whole series, our bowlers had already done reasonably well, ” said former Pakistan paceman Javed.
“This game we went for the extra seamer and that paid off…We wanted to do well away from home and the fast bowlers have stood out.” Coming to the match, Sri Lanka needs 125 runs to avoid a series sweep at The Oval.
