Sri Lanka vs. England: Sri Lankan Cricket Team Looks To Level Series At Lord’s

In a way, having back to back Test matches will help the Sri Lankan captain Tillakaratne Dilshan shrug off the shocking loss in the first game at Cardiff to England. There will be no long wait to get on to the field to try and level the series at the Lord’s in London after Sri Lanka went down by an innings to England in the first Test match at Cardiff.

It was a devastating loss undoubtedly. For most part of four and a half out of the five days of the Test match, the game seemed to be relegated to being a draw, before hara-kiri of the worst kind saw the Sri Lankans capitulate to the defeat. England would have been pleasantly surprised themselves, especially given that the venue of the second Test matches – Lord’s – is one of their happier hunting grounds.

England would have come out happier had it not been for the injury of their premier pace bowler, James Anderson. England will now go into the second Test match with Steven Finn taking Anderson’s place in the playing eleven while Jade Dernbach makes it to the squad as a reserve bowler. The rest of the playing eleven should remain the same.

It may not make too much sense for Sri Lanka to change things around too much, especially given that it was one session of freakish nature that saw them capitulate the way they did. However, they will be a tad worried about their brittle pace bowling attack. The selection of two purported all-round pace bowlers seemed to have gone against Sri Lanka and there is a good chance that one of them – Thisara Perera or Farveez Maharoof could sit out.

The batting, which fell apart on the last session could continue to remain the same, given their pedigree, but the likes of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara could do well to take a leaf out of Jonathon Trott’s book. Trott’s impeccable concentration aided his technique to the fullest and resulted in him getting to a double century. Sri Lanka will have a task on their hands if they have to overturn the result of the first game.

England play Sri Lanka in 2nd Test at Lord’s from June 3. The match will begin from 10.00 hours GMT.