Test cricket returns to Lord’s on Thursday when England look to sew up their series with Sri Lanka with a match to spare when the two sides meet in the second game of the scheduled three at the home of the sport.
A win for England will give them the series but Sri Lanka didn’t disgrace themselves at Old Trafford and will head to the capital believing that they can get themselves back into the series and force a deciding match.
England
When you consider that there had been the better part of a month between England finishing off the series with West Indies and getting this one underway and in that time they suffered the loss of their captain, I think England would be relatively happy with their performance in the opening game, particularly the latter part of it where it had the potential to get a little edgy. They would have wanted a more convincing win but at the start of their run chase they could easily have lost so the win would be welcome.
You would imagine that England will improve for the run, not just because they are back into the swing of playing red ball cricket again but also because Ollie Pope has tasted the captaincy and it isn’t all new and hectic and everything from here on. England will probably want a few more runs out of their top three moving forward in the series but these matches were always going to be about whether they had enough with the ball without Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad.
Sri Lanka
You always feared for Sri Lanka in that opening match. We knew that conditions are not the ones in which they thrive but also they only had one warm up match against a young England Lions side and they lost that so there was always a chance of them being undercooked heading into the game and to be fair that is how it looked in the initial stages but perhaps not for as long as many might have expected it to and in the end they got themselves into a position where they had a shot at winning the match.
There is no doubt that Sri Lanka will want more runs from their top three in this match but they would be delighted with how well their middle order and lower order battled and put runs on the board and if their top three can find some runs and dent the new ball then those runs would only come easier. The big thing for Sri Lanka is that they were able to be competitive with the ball. They are missing a couple of key bowlers so to stay in the game with the ball in hand was very much a positive.
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Team News
England have been forced into a change for this match with Mark Wood having not recovered from the injury which he sustained during the previous game. Olly Stone will be his replacement in what is an otherwise unchanged XI.
Sri Lanka have also confirmed their XI for this contest and they are bringing Pathum Nissanka in at number three and Lahiru Kumara into the bowling attack. Kusal Mendis and Vishwa Fernando are the two to make way.
Betting
I thought Sri Lanka played pretty well in the opening game of the series and if they come on for the run then Angelo Mathews has to have every chance of going well here. He is a player who has played in England loads of times so he’ll know what to expect from this Lord’s pitch and we know that he can handle the England bowling unit, although if we did need a reminder of it then it arrived at Old Trafford in the second innings where he looked very good.
Mathews has a performance line in this match of 58.5 which feels a little low to me. There is a chance that we would need him to cover it in just runs but he will field around the wicket at his age and with the slope keeping the bowlers interested he’ll always be in the game in terms of edges and things. There is an outside chance he turns his arm over for a bowl as well but over two innings in decent batting conditions I would be surprised if the veteran of the side can’t get to 59 runs in total, especially if the top order bats better now it has seen what it is up against.
Tips
Back A.Mathews’ Performance – Over 58.5 points for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
