Sri Lanka were in for a disappointing start to their tour of England as they lost the only warm-up game to England Lions by seven wickets with two sessions to spare on day four. They have very little time to regroup with the first Test at Old Trafford starting in four days’ time.
This is not the first time the team has lost a warm-up game prior to a Test series. There should not be much concerns whether they will be able to lift their game by next week for the Tests. The only issue is whether the team, particularly the batters, are undercooked prior to the Tests.
Time was when Sri Lanka toured England in the old days they played four to five games against counties before the Test series started. During Sri Lanka’s tour of England in 2002, they played seven warm-up games with five of them being played ahead of the first Test. By then they had spent close to a month in England and were well acclimatized to the conditions. But the problem these days is the international calendar is so cramped and there’s room only for one warm-up game.
Overcast and gloomy conditions in Sri Lanka’s first innings of the four day game made life difficult for the batters with the ball darting around. However, on day three, when Sri Lanka batted in their second innings, it was perfect conditions for batting. Sri Lanka should have batted through the day and had they done so, England Lions would have been set a challenging target.
You can understand if seamers had run through the side, but in the second innings three batters were dismissed by Farhan Ahmed, the 16-year-old off-spinner, who made his First Class debut.
Opening batter Nishan Madushka was cruising and played some cracking shots against pace and was looking solid to go on to make a big hundred when he threw his wicket away taking on the off-spinner.
The openers had added 105 runs for the first wicket and Sri Lanka should have looked at scoring above 400. But Dimuth was trapped leg before wicket, Kusal Mendis was caught behind and Dinesh Chandimal was run out off the first ball he faced and soon Sri Lanka were staring down the barrel at 146 for five.
Dhananjaya de Silva and Angelo Mathews then went on to post half-centuries to steady the innings but both gave it away cheaply. Mathews attempted to reverse sweep Ahmed and was spectacularly caught by the substitute fielder while Dhananjaya shouldered arms to the second new ball and was cleaned up.
The seamers didn’t make a big impact as well. Vishwa Fernando and Asitha Fernando, certainties for Old Trafford were rested and of the three quicks who played the game, Milan Ratnayake impressed the most bowling a lively spell and testing the batters. Lahiru Kumara should get the nod above Ratnayake and Kasun Rajitha to be the third seamer for the first Test along with Asitha and Vishwa but Ratnayake is in the running as well and there could be a debutant next week.
Prabath Jayasuriya was the most impressive of the bowlers. As it is the case always with him, he sticks to a simple plan playing with the batters’ patience and ended up with a five-wicket haul.
Old Trafford has been turning this summer and Jayasuriya could make an impact before heading back to London for the remaining two Tests.
Bowling has been reliable in general and the concern is with the batting. It is unlikely that senior batters like Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal would be around by the time another Test tour to England comes up and hopefully they will make their presence felt.
Dinesh Chandimal has been keeping wickets and maybe this is an indication that he will play the Test series as a wicketkeeper batter allowing Sri Lanka to play an additional batsman. Then, Pathum Nissanka comes into the equation. He has been prolific this year in white ball cricket and Sri Lanka should find room to fit him in. If it’s not possible for the opening Test, it should at least happen in one of the remaining Tests.
Sri Lanka have fared well in the World Test Championship occupying the fourth place with four more series to go. Two of those series will be at home and they are expected to do well there. Overcoming England will be one of their major hopes to finish the campaign well and qualify for the finals of the World Test Championship to be played in England in June next year.
