By Dhammika Ratnaweera
Sri Lankan cricketers are expected to open a new chapter to their quest for the World Cup next year in England, when they meet England in a five match ODI cricket series which will commence on Wednesday (10) under lights at Rangiri Dambulla International cricket stadium.
With occasional showers in every part of the North Central Province, even Dambulla which was tipped to be Sharjah in Sri Lanka as a cricket ground in the dry area with-out rain, but is risking to be spoiler to the starter of the tournament.
With the gloomy weather conditions at Dambulla, the toss would be a most vital factor both teams. Team winning the toss is expected to bat first to avoid humid conditions and the DLS system calculations.
Sri Lankan skipper Dinesh Chandimal said that he was confident that they could face up the challenge from the Englishment but acknowledged that the English side at the moment is a very tough side to beat. “We have to focus on our fielding very seriously. We are working to be more consistent with out batting.” said Chandimal adding that they still had got to decided who will open the batting for Sri Lanka among Kusal Janith Perera, Upul Tharanga, Niroshan Dikwella and Dhananjaya de Silva.
In the absence of Kusal Mendis and Anjelo Matthews, who had been dropped for this series, Sri Lanka will be struggling to build a combination in the middle order batting, which had already been an issue even with the duo’s presence.
Sri Lanka is expected to go with two spinners with Akila Dhananjaya being assisted by Amila Aponsu or Lakshan Sandakan with two pacemen.
In the English side Moin Ali and Adel Rashid will be prepared to destroy Sri Lanka’s batting while skipper Morgan and Joe Root had shown their form with the bat with 90s in the only warm-up game possible due to bad weather.
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