By : Nalin Jayetileke
“Sri Lanka Team is confidant and will face the English team fearlessly” says the Captain Dimuth Karunaratne during the zoom press conference held a short while ago.
Sri Lanka are facing issues with the fitness of some of their players but will be more orientated to the conditions than the visitors, especially playing at Galle. Answering a question by thesundayreader.lk on the Sri Lankan batting lineup, The Sri Lanka Captain said ” it will be ether Kusal Mendis or Lahiru Thirimanne who will most probably take on the no 3 slot, but a decision on that has not been taken yet”. Both Thirimanne and Mendis bat well against the fast bowlers, Given the fact that the Englishman have 6 seam bowlers in their squad, batsmen with ability to play fast bowling on Sri Lankan tracks are likely to have an advantage. With Dinesh Chandimal and Anjelo Mathews in the lineup, the Sri Lankan middle order will have a lot of depth. However, the captain was of the view that it may not be possible to have both Mendis and Thirimanne playing and instead may have to settle with ether of them in the side, as it will be one slot that is available for them.
As much as Sri Lanka will be looking to its spinners to do the job for them in our wickets, it has always being the batting that needs to be beefed up so that the bowlers can have some space to work round, given the England batting lineup. If Sri Lankan batsman can put up a score of over 375 runs batting first and restrict the visitors to a less than 400, we should have a good match at hand. If Sri Lankan can get to this scenario, Sri Lanka will have the edge over the visitors with the wicket taking spin when the Englishman bat for the 2nd time.
thesundayredaer.lk wish both teams all the very best!
