Australia vs Sri Lanka, 3rd Test, Day 1: Notes from the Boundary

I'll try to do this for every day of Test cricket (hell, any cricket) I watch. It'll just be a collection of random dot points, mostly observations, predictions and trends, sometimes verging onto summary.

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Aus vs. SL, 3rd Test, Day 1
Notes from the Boundary

• That surely must rank as one of the most hideously ugly shots I've seen in recent times from Phil Hughes. Bat nowhere near pad, playing right across the line with an angled open face. So loose, Ravi Bopara in the 09 Ashes loose. A fisherman's shot. He better improve fast or he won't be deserving of a trip to South Africa.
• How many times have we seen Watson drive or cut way too hard at a wide delivery and spoon it to point? Did it many times throughout last summer, often at deeply inopportune moments (Adelaide Test, 1st dig comes to mind), and now twice on tour. It simply isn't good enough from our form batsman.
• Ricky looks awful as of now (about the 20th over). But at least he's still there. And those two cover drives are perhaps an indication that he's finally finding his range... now if he can not throw it away.
• Lunch approaching and it's quickly looking a daft, daft decision to bowl first, frankly. Unless this pitch becomes completely dead after Day 1, there really isn't enough in it to not simply bat first. SL haven't exactly bowled the right lines, though.
• Fucking rain.
• As much as he's batted beautifully, he could work on his strike rotation, Shaun Marsh. A lot of fairly innocuous deliveries are being blocked back to the bowler, when he really should be looking for ones.
• What did I say about him throwing it away? In fact I think everyone could do with a good long session about leaving the ball.
• Attritional day of Test cricket then. A mixture of tight without overly threatening bowling and a mixture of watchful and terrible batting.
• Finally, this light business is ridiculous. There is no way this light is "unsafe".