I feel our batsmen are guilty of trying to play too aggressively , too early and aren't prepared, or equipped, to just hang in there. McIntosh's 70 off 200 odd deliveries may have been a bit tepid to watch, but he at least gave himself an opportunity to build a decent score. Too often I see the likes of Guptil, Taylor, Ryder, McCullum and Oram come in and play a couple of sweet shots, get to 15-20 from near a run a ball, and then spoon up a dolly. They wander off shaking their heads like the bowler has just delivered an unplayable ball. I'd be happy to see us post a couple of 300+ innings. That might at least give our bowlers some chance of exerting soreboard pressure.

Rant over (for now).

Is it any surprise that it's a lack of runs that costs our country? Daniel Vettori may look ungainly at the crease, but he bats with attitude. That's the adjustment our players need to make.

Dr Zoidberg when does Oram get 15 or 20 runs? I don't think he's capable of getting to 10 runs at the moment.

Drop him for Tuffey.

Its called getting the singles in other nations make up. Clarke is a master of that basic art. But getting the singles and rotating the strike would be too boring for our batsman. They like to work on their muscles, design a new tattoo, and have a competition as to who can smack the ball out of the net the furtherest (in fact asst. coach Mark O Donnell encourages that!) No matter what form of the game the use of the single can never be under utilised. We would be fine connect four players, whereas other teams our fine chess players, attention spans of a goldfish then.

It really just shows how crap our batting is!!!!! Hell Vettori is our best batsman not because he tries to smash everything but he gets his bat or himself behind the ball and deflects it away from the stumps & SHOCK HORROR away from the fielders. He's not afraid to grind it out and work hard for it - test cricket isn't easy and our batsman need to change their attitude towards working hard for long periods of time.

Looking forward to some more great batting from Dilshan though!

Oh and here's some sobering statistics for the test tonight:

Mahela Jayawardene's previous seven innings at the SSC: 82, 374, 127, 195, 136, 79, 2

Sorry David, for Oram remove the second digits. PP, those are some scary looking stats. They would be close the BCs batting totals for the past few tests.

At least the forecast is in our favour....

I'm not so sure it's all about attitude, that's part of it, but I think the main issue is we just don't have enough batting talent. I thought we battled hard enough in that first innings but it was a battle. We never looked particularly comfortable, unlike the Sri Lankans. Having said this you have to play with what you've got and I agree that our best chance of not getting embarrassed (not of winning) is by batting conservatively and batting time. Agree with Alvin on the singles too, although I thought we were better than usual with our single collection in the first test, we're usually terrible.

I thought Patel looked every bit the capable accumulator. Put him up the order. Without Malinga, Sri Lanka don't appear to have anything to blow him over. With that thought circulating in my mind, I'd bat them as follows..

McIntosh, Guptill, Taylor, Patel, Ryder, Flynn, Elliott, Vettori, McCullum, Tuffey, Martin

That's a looong looking batting order. McCullum could complain if he wanted, but Patel looked better than he did in the last test.

Yes, the batting leaves much to be desired, but its little wonder when our top batsmen face the wrath of Martin and Oram day in, day out in the nets. God help us if Chris Martin is still in the side when he is 36 or 37, and the rest of our bowling attack is ageing admirably also. And we wonder why our batsmen dont perform? I only hope we manage to acquire some youthful pace in the near future so our batsmen can cope with the step up to world class international attacks. You try facing military medium pace then stepping up to Slinga Malinga ripping one down at you 150+. Probably no excuse, but perhaps part of the reason why we have international batting stars not living up to their potential.