Tharanga should make this an opportunity

England will go in for their first ‘first class’ game on their three Test tour today when they take on the Sri Lanka Board President’s Xl led by T.M. Dilshan at the NCC grounds.

This will be a good testing time for the Sri Lankan opener Upul Tharanga who was left out of the two Tests in Australia.

Tharanga made a century against the English bowlers in their tour opener practice match on Tuesday, but, in fact the visiting bowlers only flexed their muscles at the CCC grounds where all nine bowlers took their turn in bowling. However this game will be played on a different note. If Tharanga could tip the scale in his favour on the crease during this game, he should fill in the void created by the move out of opener Marvan Atapattu who took wings to India yesterday to take part in the Indian Cricket League Twenty20 matches.

Ironically middle order batsman T.M. Dilshan’s first ball duck in the opening game has given the Lankan selectors a further excuse to retain mediocre Jehan Mubarak in the squad for the first Test. For his sake Dilshan should put his shutters down and concentrate on a good innings during the next three days.

In the English camp the most watched man will be their experienced new ball bowler Steve Harmison. A pair of missed boots, a couple of no balls and a bashing of 48 runs in six overs has put a question mark on his place for the first Test, but, by far he is the most experienced campaigner in the visiting camp with fifty-five Test matches and over 200 wickets behind him along with Mathew Hoggard. Among the other medium pacers James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom have limited experience behind them, but young Stueart Broad is still to play in his first Test match. However taking the local conditions into consideration, the visiting management may give another bowl to their two spinners Swann and Panesar who failed to punch holes in the local batting during the first game.

However the Englishmen can take some relief where their batting is concerned as most of their batsmen took heavy toll of the Lankan bowlers making over 300 runs in less than a day’s batting.

The first Test match begins at the Asgiriya Stadium, on Saturday.

The Lankan squad for today’s game:

T. M. Dilshan [Captain], Upul Tharanga, Mahela Udawatta, Malinda Warnapura, Jehan Mubarak, Chamara Kapugedera, Kaushal Silva, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, Chanaka Welagedera, Ishara Amarasinghe and Sujeewa De Silva

M.P. Vaughan (captain), J.M. Anderson, I.R. Bell, R.S. Bopara, S.C.J. Broad, P.D. Collingwood, A.N. Cook, M.J. Hoggard, M.J. Prior, M.S. Panesar, K.P. Pieterson, R.J. Sidebottom, O.A. Shah, P. Mustard, G.P. Swann and S.J. Harmison.