[Lord Snooty]

England v Sri Lanka

The 1st Test Match

Thursday May 19th - Monday May 23rd

at Headingley
starting at 11:00

Teams news (from Cricinfo)


Alastair Cook confirmed his XI on Wednesday and there are just two changes to the England team that was roundly thumped in Centurion at the end of the South Africa series, with James Vince making his Test introduction and Steven Finn fit to reclaim his place from Chris Woakes. That means no debut for Nottinghamshire's highly rated seamer Jake Ball.


England 1 Alastair Cook ©, 2 Alex Hales, 3 Nick Compton, 4 Joe Root, 5 James Vince, 6 Ben Stokes, 7 Jonny Bairstow (w), 8 Moeen Ali, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Steven Finn, 11 James Anderson.

The major question marks for Sri Lanka hover over No. 7 and the make-up of the pace attack. Kaushal Silva will return to opener, after missing the New Zealand tour, while Dinesh Chandimal looks likely to keep the gloves and bat four. Dasun Shanaka's century against Leicestershire, and his ability to bowl seam-up, may win him a Test debut in the allrounder's spot; Dhammika Prasad's injury reduces their bowling options, with the four other seamers in the party having played once each so far, to underwhelming effect.


Sri Lanka (probable) 1 Dimuth Karunaratne, 2 Kaushal Silva, 3 Kusal Mendis, 4 Dinesh Chandimal (w), 5 Angelo Mathews ©, 6 Milinda Siriwardana, 7 Dasun Shanaka, 8 Rangana Herath, 9 Dushmantha Chameera, 10 Shaminda Eranga/Nuwan Pradeep 11 Suranga Lakmal