Sri Lanka Tour Preview

So here we are again. England are back in Sri Lanka and it only seems like five minutes (rather than 14 months) since Joe Root and the lads were last over there. The big question is whether we can expect the same result?

I think most people expected England to lose last time. The thought process went like this: Sri Lanka have lots of spinners and English batsmen can’t play spin. But the professional pundits, the armchair experts, and worst of all those idiot bloggers, got it completely wrong. We unexpectedly won 3-0.

This time I sense that most England fans are quite chipper about our prospects – even though Sri Lanka are slight favourites in the cricket betting. It’s dangerous to disagree with the bookies, as they put a lot of effort into calculating the odds, but I’m honestly surprised that more people aren’t backing England.

Although we were outplayed in New Zealand like most teams are < cough > India < cough > I thought we recovered from a hammering in the first Test against South Africa really well. Our series win thereafter was well deserved and very convincing. What’s more, a number of emerging players were the stars; therefore England have some momentum.

As for the Lankans, their performances have remained consistently inconsistent (if you know what I mean) since 2018. They’ve had some great results, some amazing performances – Kusal Perera’s heroics in South Africa were particularly astonishing – but also some dispiriting defeats. In fact, Perera’s personal fortunes sum things up rather nicely: he’s basically achieved sod all in Test cricket since his insane efforts in Durban.

In their last four series Sri Lanka have won in South Africa (perhaps a sign that we shouldn’t carried away with own success there), drew 1-1 at home against New Zealand – typically they won the first game but were absolutely obliterated by an innings in the second – and then got beaten in Pakistan.

Sri Lanka’s most recent series was against Zimbabwe. They won the first Test quite comfortably but were made to work quite hard in the second. In fact, they actually conceded 406 in the first innings and then got bowled out for 293. Fortunately, however, they were ultimately able to overcome the large deficit to secure a draw.

When one looks at these results, its hard to see how our hosts have improved much in the last 14 months. The batsmen are pretty much the same familiar faces, and although there’s the odd newbie in the bowling line-up none of them have put in world-beating performances thus far.

Consequently, I expect England to face a similar challenge to the one they overcame with flying colours last time around – although there’s always the chance that Sri Lanka might actually turn up this time.

When one looks at the Lankans’ batting line up it’s not particularly great but it’s not bad either. After all, they do have some experienced players who have scored runs in Test cricket in the past.

Dimuth Karunaratne, Kulsal Mendis, and Dinesh Chandimal are all good players who could hurt England. They’re not top class but they’re more than capable of scoring hundreds if they find form. Meanwhile, new opener Oshada Fernando has had a promising start to his Test career, and Angelo Mathews is still only 32 years old and more than capable of making big scores.

It’s the bowling, however, that worries me. They’re really short on class. If I was an Australian hack describing an England attack of similar quality I’d be throwing around terms like ‘pie chuckers’, ‘medium pacers’, and ‘popgun possums’.

When it comes to the seamers (who admittedly might not play too much of a role) the attack still features Suranga Lakmal, who has bowled quite well over the last year but still remains a mediocre Test bowler with a very mediocre average of 37. Then there’s the left-armer Vishwa Fernando, whose domestic record suggests he’s nothing particularly special, and Kasun Rajitha who is another medium-fast operator who won’t frighten anyone other than the most jelly-kneed batsmen.

The good news for Sri Lanka is that they’ve finally found a bowler with a bit of pace. His name is Lahiru Kumara. But he’s just 23 years old and very wet behind the ears. He may develop into a world class bowler in time but one imagines this particular series has come too soon for him.

As for the spinners things are looking slightly rosier but I’m still not particularly enthused. Sri Lanka’s trump card might have been the mystery spinner Akila Dananjaya, who took two five wicket hauls in his last two Tests, including a six-fer against England in 2018. Sadly, however, the ICC decided that Akila’s action wasn’t so killer. So they banned him for a year for chucking. Ouch.

The remaining spinners look reasonable but nothing in Murali or even Herath’s class. There’s the veteran Dilruwan Perera, who’s a useful off-spinner, and young left armer Lasith Embuldeniya, who looks quite promising but hasn’t played a lot of cricket. There’s also the all rounder Dhananjaya de Silva but he’s usually more effective with the bat than the ball.

I don’t see why England need to worry about these guys. If we bat well – and yes, I admit that’s a big if when it comes to the England Test team – then we should be able to put runs on the board. The only caveat is that a lot of these bowlers tend to do a bit better at home than they do overseas. Spoons and Co shouldn’t be overly concerned though.

It’s important to remember that England will be fielding a slightly different attack of their own this time. The seamers are obviously the same – especially now that both Jofra Archer and Mark Wood have been ruled out through injury – but the spin attack will be 66.6% different. In fact, it might actually end up being 100% different unless Jack Leach can sort his fitness out.

When we visited Sri Lanka in late 2018 our three-pronged spin attack featured Leach, Adil Rashid, and Moeen Ali. I liked the balance these guys provided. There was an orthodox left-armer, an off-spinner, and a leggie. England have tried to keep this balance judging by the squad selected by Ed Smith. The problem is that nobody quite knows if Dom Bess and Matt Parkinson will perform as well as their more experienced predecessors did.

Although I’m confident that Bess and Leach will bowl well enough to cause Sri Lanka some problems on turning pitches – they’re both accurate and land more than enough balls in the right areas when they’re playing at Taunton – young Parkie is a bit of an unknown quantity. It will be interesting to see if Joe Root trusts him or just decides to (over)bowl himself instead. Sadly I think that Root rather rates his own bowling.

Whether England can score enough runs to give the bowlers something to bowl at could be the crucial factor in this series. Our young spinners will need scoreboard pressure on their side. Fortunately, however, I’m beginning to quite like the look of England’s middle-order. The top three still has question marks but Root, Stokes, Pope and then Foakes (or Buttler) looks strong enough to me. There’s certainly enough talent there.

The top 3 is very likely to be Sibley, who backed up his performances in South Africa with a strong showing for the Lions, Zak Crawley and Joe Denly. The shadow of Keaton Jennings looms large though and may well overshadow much of the buildup.

Would Ed Smith really pick someone so controversial just to ‘ride the pine’ on the bench? Hmmmm. I wonder. Look out for James Ogden’s feature on young Keaton in the coming days.

James Morgan

PS A quick word on England women’s elimination from the WT20 down under. Yes everyone knew there wouldn’t be a reserve day ahead of the tournament but it’s still an incredibly harsh way to be eliminated. They didn’t even get the opportunity to score 22 runs off a single ball to go through. I guess World Cup semis and the SCG don’t mix well.