England start their lone first-class match on the Sri Lankan tour today, hoping to fill the blanks in the Test squad for the series starting in a week's time.
The three day match against the Sri Lanka Cricket XI at the Nondescripts Club is the tourists' last opportunity to strike form ahead of the first of three back-to-back Tests starting in Kandy on Dec. 1.
The tour opener earlier this week against the same opposition, where all 16 England players were allowed to take the field, saw the hosts pile up 500-5 and restrict the tourists to 315-6.
PHOTO: AFP
But today only 11 will play and England captain Michael Vaughan said performances in the match will help him finalize the team for the Kandy Test.
"There are still a couple of places up for grabs and we have to make sure that, come Kandy on Dec. 1, we get our eleven right," Vaughan said. "So there might be a couple of spaces where we can give players a chance and rest a couple of players who have played a lot of cricket recently. But ideally you want to play as many players as possible in this three day game who are going to be playing in the Test match."
The first five batting spots are settled with Vaughan opening with Alastair Cook, followed by Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood.
Except for Pietersen, who was dismissed for four, the rest had a good outing in the opening match with Cook top-scoring with 63 and Collingwood making 52 before both retired to give others a chance at the crease.
Owais Shah, who also retired after making 38, and Ravi Bopara, who returned unbeaten on 40, are expected to contest the number six Test spot.
With wicketkeeper Matt Prior and left-arm spinner Monty Panesar certain to play in Kandy, England need to decide the three fast bowling places among five hopefuls.
Steve Harmison, who joined the squad late having proved his fitness in South Africa, will be keenly watched after sending down just six overs in the previous match.
Left-armer Ryan Sidebottom, Matthew Hoggard, James Anderson and Stuart Broad are the others in line to share the new ball attack.
Tillekeratne Dilshan will lead the home team in a bid to regain his Test place after being ignored for the recent Australian tour and the Kandy Test.
The local side also includes left-handed opener Upul Tharanga, who was on Friday named for the first Test after scoring 112 against England in the tour opener.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later