Sri Lanka leave for England for six white ball games

By Rex Clementine

The national cricket team left the island in the early hours of yesterday for a brief tour of United Kingdom where they will play three ODIs and three T-20 Internationals. England are defending World Champions and it remains to be seen how Sri Lanka’s new look side will fare against their formidable opponents. Despite the series defeat to Bangladesh last month, there were lots of positives for the young team and the fans will be hoping that they will develop further in what’s going to be a tough assignment.

The opponents, weather and conditions will be all challenging for the Sri Lankan side with just a few players having previous experience of playing in England.

Tom Moody, Director of Cricket, will be travelling with the team and someone like him with heaps of experience in England having played many years of County Cricket for Worcestershire and Warwickshire will come in handy.

The team landed in Birmingham just in time as after 8th of June anyone coming from Sri Lanka will have to spend 14 days in quarantine in a hotel. Sri Lanka have fallen into red zone with the number of COVID cases on the rise. UK, meanwhile, has got the pandemic under control and fans will be admitted to the ground during this series.

The two warm-up games that Sri Lanka were supposed to play in Hove and Canterbury against Sussex and Kent have been scrapped as the tourists will be staying on a bio-secure bubble and outside interactions will be next to nothing. Instead, Sri Lanka will play two warm-up games among the players in the extended squad.

Sri Lanka’s selectors having adopted an aggressive youth policy in Bangladesh brought back experienced seamer Nuwan Pradeep for England games. Pradeep, a white ball specialist, has done well in limited overs cricket particularly bowling the death overs so well.

Left-arm spinner Praveen Jayawickrama, who had a dream debut in the second Test against Bangladesh in April, has been drafted into the 24 member squad along with other new comers such as Dhananjaya Lakshan, Charith Asalanka and Ishan Jayaratne.

Avishka Fernando makes a return to the side after being sent home from Galle in January for failing fitness tests. Fernando has got his act together and passed the two kilometer run and skin folds tests. He had quite an impact during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019 in England.