Sri Lankan players are aiming to make an impact in the upcoming test series against England as the captain Ben Stokes has been ruled out due to injury.
The England skipper sustained a hamstring injury during The Hundred 2024 tournament. His absence will mark the first inception of England’s dynamic ‘Bazball’ approach which they adopted two years ago under coach Brendon McCullum.
With his absence, Ollie Pope will be captain of the side even though he has led county team Surrey in just one FC match. England announced their team on Monday, with fast bowler Matthew Potts recalled as decided to go in with a five-man attack.
Meanwhile, Dan Lawrence has been deployed as an opener in county cricket and will be returning to the national side for the first time in two and half years after Zak Crawley’s fingered fracture which left a slot in the top order.
Crawley sustained his injury during the third test against West Indies on home ground last month.
“I think that’s the style of cricketer that Baz McCullum and Ben Stokes are generally after and my general way of going about it is to try and be quite aggressive,” Lawrence said Monday.
“Throughout my whole career I’ve played a certain brand of cricket and that has served me well so I’m just going to do the same thing. I’m just going to go out there and try to be as free as possible,” concluded Dan Lawrence.
On the other hand, Sanath Jayasuriya opened up about his expectations on the England tests. “We have an experienced batting order,” said Jayasuriya.
“Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dinesh Chandimal — they have all played a lot of cricket.” This year will mark the 40th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s test in England, a match where Sidath made a superb one of several hundred for the tourists in a draw at Lord’s.
“The fact that we have got a late-summer tour is great,” he said. “It’s more similar to our conditions than the early summer tours.” The first match of the test series will start on August 21 at Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
