England will be looking to extend their winning streak against struggling Sri Lanka when the Twenty20 series begins on Wednesday in Cardiff.
The three matches between the nations provide an opportunity to continue building towards this year's T20 World Cup, though the hosts are without two key players due to injuries.
Fast bowler Jofra Archer is sidelined after surgery on his right elbow, while Ben Stokes is not yet ready to return to England duty following a broken finger. However, the all-rounder is playing again for Durham, suggesting an international comeback is not too far away.
Reece Topley is another to be ruled out of action, with England opting for David Willey as an alternative left-arm bowling option. Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan have been injury doubts ahead of the opening fixture, though captain Eoin Morgan said on Tuesday he expects both to be available.
England's limited-overs skipper was also asked again about the possibility of a return for Alex Hales, with the batsman having not played for England since being withdrawn from the 50-over squad just prior to the 2019 World Cup.
"There are conversations to be had between Alex, myself and the coach and potentially a few of the players," Morgan told the media. "Trying to get those happening in Covid times has been an issue. They will happen at some stage."
England have won three on the spin against Sri Lanka, who have been beaten in nine of their last 10 completed outings in T20 cricket. Their solitary win during the miserable run came against West Indies in March.
In that same month, England lost a hard-fought series in India, going down 3-2 to Virat Kohli's side. Bairstow is one of a number of players back in the fold after heading home from the Indian Premier League earlier than originally scheduled once the tournament was halted due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hosts have an unblemished record at Sophia Gardens in T20 action too, winning all six games played there. This will be the first time they have hosted Sri Lanka at the venue.
Jonny be good!
After isolating upon his return from India, Bairstow has been in outstanding form in the domestic T20 competition, the Vitality Blast.
The right-handed batsman has made 295 runs in four outings for Yorkshire, including hitting 112 against Worcestershire when needing a runner for half of his innings due to an injured ankle. Still, there is little need to move when you can hit boundaries – he has managed 26 fours and 18 sixes while scoring at a strike-rate of 175.59 runs per 100 deliveries while in action for his county in that competition.
Opportunity knocks
Chris Woakes is back for England, having not featured in a T20 at international level since November 2015. Like Willey, he will hope to make the most of any opportunity that comes his way in the series, which sees two games staged in the Welsh capital before concluding at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton.
Sri Lanka, too, have some fresh faces: Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya Lakshan and Ishan Jayaratne have been included in a 24-man squad for both this series and the three one-dayers that follow. The tourists are without former captain Angelo Mathews, however.
Key series facts
- England lost their most recent men's T20I on home soil, against Australia in September 2020; however, the last time they lost two consecutive such matches at home was in August 2013.
- Since the beginning of 2020, Sri Lanka have the second lowest bowling dot-ball percentage (38.3 per cent) of any Test-playing country in the powerplay overs in men’s T20Is (Afghanistan 37.7 per cent).
- Sri Lanka have scored just 53.6 per cent of their runs from boundaries in powerplay overs in T20 games since the beginning of 2020, the lowest rate of any Test-playing country in that time.
- Morgan (201) needs just 13 runs to become the highest run-scorer in men's T20 clashes between England and Sri Lanka (Mahela Jayawardene – 213).
- Chris Jordan (12) needs just two wickets to become the highest wicket-taker in men's T20 games involving England and Sri Lanka (Lasith Malinga – 13).
Yorkshire end winless run while Robin Das inspires Essex
Yorkshire clinched their first win of the season in any format with an eight-run Vitality Blast victory against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.
England’s Dawid Malan hit 95 off 56 balls and skipper Shan Masood’s 34 off 23 helped Yorkshire post 182 for seven after electing to bat first, and that proved to be enough.
Notts’ Alex Hales struck a half-century for the second consecutive night and New Zealand international Colin Munro made 46, while David Wiese took two for 32 for the visitors, who chalked up their first T20 win at Trent Bridge since 2015.
Yorkshire, who prop up Division Two in the LV= County Championship after failing to win any of their first five matches, had lost their previous three Blast fixtures. They face Roses rivals Lancashire at Headingley on Thursday.
Robin Das continued his impressive breakthrough week with a maiden Blast half-century as Essex belatedly began their campaign with a three-wicket win over Gloucestershire.
Das, 21, hit a century on his first-class debut against Ireland on Friday before crashing 69 from 33 balls to help Essex towards a daunting 196 target.
That huge Gloucestershire score was in large part down to Ben Charlesworth’s brutal 19-ball 50 – the quickest for the county in T20s.
But Das, together with fellow homegrown player Feroze Khushi’s 34 off 14 balls and Tom Westley’s 31 not out, guided Essex to victory with five balls to spare.
Somerset beat Kent by 13 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis Method in a rain-affected match at Canterbury.
Three interruptions marred the contest, but Somerset eventually restricted Kent to 112 in pursuit of a revised target of 126 from 15 overs despite 29 from skipper Sam Billings.
Ben Green took three for 19 and Somerset team-mate Lewis Gregory stifled the hosts when they needed 18 off the last over.
Somerset were all out for 154 from 20 overs, with their biggest contribution coming from Tom Lammonby (34), while Kent’s Wes Agar took three for 18.
Heinrich Malan sees ‘opportunity’ for Ireland to match England’s fire with fire
Ireland coach Heinrich Malan said his side will look to entertain when they take on England on day one of the Test at Lord’s on Thursday.
The team spent March and April touring south Asia with games against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ahead of their first Test meeting with England since 2019.
England’s aggressive approach continues to win acclaim but Malan pointed out that with much of his side having played the bulk of their careers in one-day cricket, they were well set up to provide a watchable spectacle across their four days in London.
“Look, we know it will be challenging,” said Malan. “But within that challenge it will create opportunity too, and I guess for us we’re looking at the opportunity side of things.
“If they play the way they play and we can execute some of the plans that we have in place, hopefully we can execute that and that will leave us there for an exciting match.
“If you look at the way we’ve played white-ball cricket, we’ve (entertained). We’ve drawn some cards, we’ve beaten one or two of the top-tier teams in the way that we’ve gone about our white-ball business.
“To be fair, a lot of our players, their fall-back is white-ball as an understudy of how they play so a lot of their natural instinct is geared towards white-ball cricket which is all about entertainment.”
Ireland were admitted as full members of the International Cricket Council in 2017 and are currently ranked 12th of the 12 Test-playing nations.
They have lost all six Tests they have played since their first against Pakistan in 2018 but have fared better as a one-day side, registering 75 wins in 188 games since 2006.
They will be England’s final opponents before the Ashes begins at Edgbaston in June and Brendon McCullum’s players will be out to impress their coach in order to secure a place in the side.
“It’s another great opportunity for us to play some red-ball cricket, something that our players have longed for over the last couple of years, and get the opportunity at the home of cricket is obviously a special week for us,” said Malan.
“We know that we’re at the start of our red-ball journey as a country and very much looking forward to building on some of those building blocks we put in place over the last couple of weeks on the sub-continent.
“When you prepare for any game of cricket it’s what you prepare for, to go out there and try and win and then play accordingly.
“Will it be challenging? Yes. Is it a huge challenge? It’s one that we’re very much looking forward to.”
Seamer Josh Tongue to make his England Test debut against Ireland
Josh Tongue will make his Test debut when England take on Ireland at Lord’s this week.
The Worcestershire seamer, who has taken 11 wickets in LV= County Championship Division Two this season including that of Australia star Steve Smith in his side’s draw with Sussex, was named in the squad after injuries to James Anderson, Ollie Robinson, Jofra Archer and Olly Stone.
He said: “It’s an amazing feeling. Speechless really, even from when I got the first call-up to be in the squad. Now being in the actual team, it’s just a dream come true really.
“Baz (coach Brendon McCullum) came up to me just before training finished today and gave me the good news. I bowled at some of the lads on Monday, I felt like I bowled nicely and obviously I must have bowled fairly well to get selected.”
Tongue will feature in a three-pronged seam attack with Stuart Broad and Matthew Potts for the four-day match which starts on Thursday.
Jonny Bairstow makes his first international appearance since last August after a long-term ankle injury and will keep wicket.
Bairstow is listed to bat at number seven, with Yorkshire colleague Harry Brook keeping his place at number five after four centuries in five Tests against Pakistan and New Zealand over the winter.
They are separated in the provisional order by captain Ben Stokes, while Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley will open the batting, with vice-captain Ollie Pope at number three and Joe Root at four.
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