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Sri Lanka v England, 1st ODI, Dambulla, starts 1430 local, 0900 GMT

After the mayhem in South Africa, it’s now time to return to a calmer, longer format of the game. Sri Lanka and England have hardly had time to catch their breath, but immediately face a five-match, 50-overs series beginning in Dambulla on Monday.England shook off their stomach bugs to ease to victory in a warm-up on Saturday, but they will be hoping to shake off much more, too: memories of their match here four years ago when they were toppled for 88, and overhauled in 13.5 overs.Paul Collingwood – one of two survivors along with James Anderson – would, of course, rather forget: “When I have memories like that I usually blank them out,” he admitted. “I don’t remember too much about it other than it turned quite a bit and they knocked the runs off pretty quickly. There’s no point looking back, we need to look forward.”The last time the two sides met in a bilateral series in 2006, England were walloped 5-0 on home soil. Andrew Flintoff’s left ankle was out for the series then, and it won’t be available now. Mahela Jayawardene recognises that this big blow helps Sri Lanka – whose last home series ended in 3-0 triumph against Bangladesh in July. But he won’t be underestimating England, believing they are stronger than in 2006. “England will be a good challenge for us.”Muttiah Muralitharan’s injured bicep has ruled him out of the first three matches at least. Muralitharan has not played one-day cricket since taking Sri Lanka to the World Cup final in April, owing to a combination of rest and county commitments. In any case Sri Lanka are keener to get him fit for their ensuing trip to Australia but Dilruwan Perera, the offspinner, replaces him for now.”It doesn’t make that big a difference,” insisted Jayawardene. “We’ve toured without Murali and done well and we played without him for almost a year when he had a shoulder problem. When our guys are pushed to the limit we tend to come back strongly.”Chaminda Vaas has also not featured in ODIs since the World Cup but he did play the ICC World Twenty20, which Muralitharan missed with an elbow problem. Vaas is back now, but even so Sri Lanka will limit his workload.The allrounder Kaushal Lokuarachchi comes in ahead of fellow legspinner Malinga Bandara. Lokuarachchi, Loku to his team, had a successful tour of England with Sri Lanka A this summer with both bat and ball. A spin academy product, he has 30 wickets in his 19, mostly sporadic, one-day appearances.

His inclusion allows Sri Lanka to assess him as an eventual replacement for Sanath Jayasuriya. Jayawardene knows already what Bandara can do, so now it’s time for Lokuarachchi to press his claims. “It’s good for us to try a few things right now, see what Loku has to offer and how we can have different combinations going forward.”Bell, untarnished by the World Twenty20, made a fluid century in the warm-up, while James Anderson bowled well yet again, taking three wickets. Ryan Sidebottom, recovered from a side strain, took the new ball and struck early. His first-change replacement, Stuart Broad, brushed aside memories of Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes, to take two wickets.All three pace bowlers acquitted themselves well under the eye of Ottis Gibson, England’s bowling coach for this tour. Allan Donald is unavailable owing to TV commitments in South Africa but Gibson – who has already worked at the ECB’s national academy in Loughborough – could be a longer-term candidate with Donald heading backto his former county Warwickshire.Phil Mustard, the sixth wicketkeeper England have used this year – no keeper won a central contract, either – is in line to open, as Matt Prior is out with a broken thumb. Much hype has surrounded Mustard since his eye-catching 49 in the Lord’s final for Durham, and Peter Moores has whisked him in, despite Dale Benkenstein, his county captain, urging caution in rushing him on to the international stage.Still, he arrives with 62 Championship victims under his belt this season, and 893 runs in limited-overs at a strike-rate of 111. Whether Paul Nixon, England’s forgotten keeper, feels slightly hard done-to is another story. Of the squad itself, Collingwood is excited: “All 15 players have a good chance of playing – and that’s the beauty of it. We believe we have the skill and depth here to win the series.”New regulations will take effect, namely that free-hits will be introduced for front foot no-balls; another fielder will be allowed outside the circle in Powerplays and the ball will be changed after 35 overs in each innings.”It gives the captains a few more options which in turn gives you a few more headaches and tactics,” said Collingwood. “With a third person outside the ring, it may help to bowl the spinners during that period. The free hit will also be exciting for the spectators and you may see the bowlers dragging their foot back a bit.”Sri Lanka (probable) 1 Upul Tharanga, 2 Sanath Jayasuriya, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene (capt), 5 Chamara Silva, 6 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 7 Jehan Mubarak, 8 Kaushal Lokuarachchi, 9 Chaminda Vaas, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Dilhara Fernando.England (probable) 1 Alastair Cook, 2 Phil Mustard (wk), 3 Ian Bell, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Ravi Bopara, 6 Paul Collingwood (capt), 7 Owais Shah, 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Monty Panesar, 10 Ryan Sidebottom, 11 James Anderson.

On the back of their match-winning performances with the ball, Dale Steyn and Brett Lee have broken into the top ten in the ICC player rankings for Test bowlers.Lee and Steyn jump into joint eighth position after their performances against Sri Lanka and New Zealand in the first of the coinciding two-Test contests being held in Australia and South Africa.Lee finished with figures of 8 for 112 at the Gabba, while Steyn bagged his first ten-wicket haul at The Wanderers as both their teams registered convincing victories. This is the first time the two bowlers have been placed in the top ten and they could move up further during the Tests beginning later this week in Hobart and Centurion.The other change in the top ten for Test bowlers is the advance of Stuart Clark to third place at the expense of Shane Bond, who dropped to fourth. Bond has been ruled out for at least four to six weeks after suffering an abdominal tear.Jacques Kallis’s continued run of prolific scores has seen him displace Mohammad Yousuf from the second position in the rankings for Test batsmen, one place behind Ricky Ponting. Kallis also extended his lead in the rankings for Test allrounders, where he is in first place ahead of Andrew Flintoff.

Jammu & Kashmir stormed into the knockout phase of the Ranji Trophywith a four wicket triumph over Himachal Pradesh in their final NorthZone league tie at the Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu. J&K finishedthird in the zonal standings with 24 points from their five games,behind Punjab (40) and Delhi (29).The win was enabled by a sporting declaration from Himachal skipperAnurag Thakur who set the hosts a fourth innings target of 251 in 77overs. An invaluable 138 from opener Ranjit Bali helped J&K across thefinishing line with more than 13 overs to spare. It was a spectacularrecovery by J&K who trailed by 140 in the first innings, narrowlyavoiding the follow-on.Resuming at 55/4, Himachal declared just over ten overs into themorning. In that period they exactly doubled their score, losing twowickets in the process. The closure was applied at the fall of onedrop Rahul Panta for a run-a-ball 66 (4 fours, 2 sixes).A 131 run third wicket stand between Bali and Ashwini Gupta (43) putJ&K firmly on the road to victory. After the latter’s departure at193, Bali carried on unperturbed until he was bowled by Nischal Gaurjust sixteen runs short of victory. His 138 arrived from 180 balls andfeatured 14 fours and 4 sixes. J&K lost two more wickets before thewinning runs came in the 64th over.

Australia captain Pat Cummins has conceded he is unlikely to feature in the Boxing Day Test and may not play again in the series after his team was able to secure a “pretty amazing” Ashes victory in Adelaide to retain the urn in just 11 days of playing time.For Cummins, who claimed six wickets in the match, it was his first game for five-and-a-half months as he recovered from a back injury and while he said he came through the game well back-to-back Tests was always unlikely for him.”I’m feeling really good, [but] as for the rest of the series we’ll wait and see,” he said. “We had a pretty aggressive build-up knowing that it’s the Ashes there to be won and we thought that was worth it. Now that the series has been won, there might be a sense of job’s done and let’s reassess the risk.Related

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“We’ll work it out over the next couple of days, I doubt I’ll be playing Melbourne, and then we’ll have a chat about Sydney. But certainly before the series it was, while the series was live, let’s take on the risk and have a crack at it, now it’s done, I think we’ll need to have a chat about it.”Jamie Smith and Will Jacks raised the slim prospect of a remarkable England chase on the final day in Adelaide but Australia always had runs in the bank, although had to contend with the loss of Nathan Lyon to what looked like a series-ending hamstring injury.However, Mitchell Starc claimed three wickets on the final day – the vital one of Jacks courtesy of a spectacular catch at first slip by Marnus Labuschagne – and Scott Boland closed out the match.”It feels pretty awesome. Yeah, amazing,” Cummins said at the presentation. “It’s a series we’ve been thinking about for a long time. It wasn’t easy today, but we got it done. It’s a pretty excited changing room in there.”The relentlessness of Australia’s attack stood out throughout the game, while the fielding was superb and Alex Carey produced another masterclass behind the stumps.”I think that’s when we’re at our best, this cricket team,” Cummins said about maintaining the pressure on England. “You can’t really rush things here in Australia. I think you kind of will it to happen, but it doesn’t really work that way. It’s good old-fashioned grind a lot of the time. I loved the toil from all the guys today. It got a little bit closer than I would have liked, but I’m pretty happy.”He also praised the way his team responded to various challenges that came their way, including the loss of Lyon. “I think that’s one of the things I’m most proud about in this group,” he said. “Nothing ever really happens perfectly, there’s always something that gets thrown up.”Over the last few years, this groups have shown [it can] just crack on. Even I missed the first couple of games, Steve stepped right in and it was smooth and seamless. There’s always things that crop up; Nathan Lyon doing his hammy with a couple of hours left today.”The boys just go, okay, that’s happened. Let’s crack on. What’s next? I think that’s one of the big reasons why we’ve had our success over the last couple of years.”On his own comeback, he added: “The last two months have been a bit of a grind. [I gave] myself every chance, but it’s all worth it when you get days like this, packed crowd and retaining the Ashes.”

India Under-19 skipper Ajay Ratra won the toss in the first ‘Test’ againstthe England Under-19 and elected to bat at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbaion Tuesday. They were bowled out for 257 in 78.5 overs.In reply, England Under-19 openers Nikki Peng (18) and Gary Pratt (4)negotiated the medium pace duo of Nitin Agarwal and Siddarth Trivedi to endthe day at 24 for no loss off 9 overs.Little could Ratra have realised that his decision to bat would not be ahappy outing for the hosts as they were bowled out in two and a halfsessions. Alind Naidu top scored with 83 while skipper Ajay Ratra chippedin with 43. Kyle Hogg bagged three for 33. He was well complimented byJustin Bishop who took three for 24. Andrew McGarry and Monty Panesarpicked up two wickets each.The first session of the day belonged to the English bowlers as theyrestricted the hosts to 101 for four. Justin Bishop and Kyle Hogg took twowickets each in the session swinging the pendulum towards the tourists.The tempo of the game swung both ways during the day. After the bowlersmade their mark in the first session, the post lunch session saw a bravefightback from the Indian middle order batsmen. Ajay Ratra and Alind Naiduput on a face saving 106-run partnership off 183 balls for the sixthwicket. Ratra played second fiddle in the partnership as he was rotatingthe strike regularly. Naidu on the other hand was more aggressive in hisapproach cutting and pulling anthing bowled short at him. He was confidentof his shots and playing them well, before a lapse in concentration causedhim his wicket and a well deserved century.Some late order resistance came in the form of a quickfire innings fromVidhyut Sivaramakrishnan (18 off nine balls). He hit two massive sixes andone four.The hosts could not hold out the English side as they were dismissed on thefirst day. The tourists in reply batted sensibly, playing out the nineovers before stumps were drawn on the first day. Medium pacer SiddarthTrivedi rapped Gary Pratt on the pads with the first ball of the inningsbut the appeal was turned down by umpire SK Sharma. Nikki Peng was the moreaggressive of the two openers and hit three balls to the fence. Peng waslucky to be at the crease as he was dropped in the slips off the bowling ofNitin Agarwal.

The Indian board’s (BCCI’s) working committee has decided to change the Ranji Trophy format from 2008-09 season to enable the Plate Group toppers to fight for the trophy by including the top two in the knock-out quarter final phase with six elite division teams.As a consequence, the Plate Group knock-out will be done away with and the prize-money restructured. “This was done as per a suggestion from the technical committee [headed by Sunil Gavaskar’,” said N Srinivasan, the BCCI treasurer. “Some of the Plate Group teams felt they were not playing for the Ranji Trophy.”The BCCI also decided to double the infrastructure subsidy to associations from Rs 25 to Rs 50 crore (US$6,351,432 – 12,702,864). It also ratified the appointment of Gary Kirsten as the national coach and Dav Whatmore as the director of operations of the National Cricket Academy, besides appointing former India batsman WV Raman as the Under-19 team’s coach for the upcoming tour of South Africa, starting on December 28.The working committee also approved the three-Test tour of India by South Africa from mid-March 2008 and the England A team’s participation in this year’s Duleep Trophy as the sixth outfit.

Andre Nel, the South African fast bowler, has been called up to replace Loots Bosman in the squad for the ICC World Twenty20 that starts next week. Bosman was ruled out of the tournament after he was advised six weeks’ rest due to a back injury he suffered while fielding during a match against Zimbabwe last month.According to Joubert Strydom, convener of selectors, Nel’s inclusion would strengthen thebowling line-up, which was looking “a bit under-done”.”We are well stocked in the top three batting department with five players – Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs, AB de Villiers, Goolam Bodi and JP Duminy – all technically equipped to deal with the new ball and having the expansive strokeplay to force the pace where necessary,” Strydom said.Denying claims that Nel’s inclusion in the squad would cause a quota-imbalance, Norman Arendse, president of Cricket South Africa, said while the board aimed at having seven players of colour in the squad, this was not a binding obligation.”Quotas are set in stone while targets are something to strive for. The selectors have convinced me that there are logical and rational cricket reasons for opting for Nel,” he said. “These included an examination of strike rates, economy rates, number of wickets taken and the like of the leading candidates.”Nel will join the South African training camp in Potchefstroom as soon as possible toenable him to participate fully in the preparation phase.

Success breeds success in international sport. The England camp is a much more relaxed place now that the team is back to winning ways. The players have their families in tow and have taken over a marina on the northern side of Napier, where the third and final Test gets underway on Saturday. According to Paul Collingwood, the confidence gained from their 126-run victory in Wellington on Monday has reinstalled them as series favourites. “If we put in the performance we can do,” said Collingwood, “we should win.”England’s Wellington win was not without its flaws. Their catching was appalling and the top six batsmen once again made starts without threatening to build a big innings. But, having endured nine barren months since their last Test victory against West Indies in Chester-le-Street, Collingwood was content to be thankful for small mercies. “We still have areas to improve on, but we’d have taken that performance at the start,” he said. “We have a hell of a lot of positives to take into the next game.”It was a massive relief, and great to win,” said Collingwood, who joked that there’d been a few cobwebs gathering on the team’s victory song-sheet. “That’s what we play the game for. We’d gone a long time without a Test win so that starts preying on your mind, but I’m used to that over the years with Durham. It’s just one of those things. You’ve got to be confident in your ability to put in the big performances. You have to back yourself to go out there and do that, and there were some top performances last week.”Most of those performances, however, came at the bottom end of the team sheet. Tim Ambrose’s debut century was the stand-out batting performance, while the three seamers – James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ryan Sidebottom – all excelled in helpful conditions. Collingwood was the pick of England’s specialist batsmen with a brace of half-centuries, but he knows full well that, on what is expected to be a flat and friendly track, the watching public will be expecting some centuries this week.Collingwood, however, warned that the more an issue was made of England’s lack of hundreds, the harder it would be to end the drought. “You can put too much pressure on yourself,” he explained. “You play your best cricket when you’re relaxed and reacting to the ball, and enjoying yourself with a smile on your face. You play your worst when you think ‘I must do this, I can’t do that.’ That’s when you start doing things wrong. If you say ‘I mustn’t drop short because he’ll smash it,’ that’s what you end up doing. That’s how life works, on a cricket pitch anyway.”Of the top six, only Alastair Cook has managed three figures this winter, and that innings came in a dead rubber at Galle before Christmas. Collingwood himself hasn’t made a Test hundred since June, while Kevin Pietersen – normally so dominant – has gone 10 consecutive innings without so much as a fifty. “We’re just one big ton away from opening the floodgates again,” said Collingwood. “It’s up to one of us to go out there and do that.”Apart from the reintroduction of Andrew Strauss at the expense of Ravi Bopara (and the odd rejig in the batting order), England’s top six has been unchanged since the Headingley Test last May, a situation that contrasts starkly with the treatment meted out to Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard after their failures in the first Test. But Collingwood denied that the players were stuck in the comfort zone.

“With the records they have, they’ve proved they can play against different bowlers and in different conditions,” said Collingwood. “We’ve come up against some good bowling, certainly in the India series [in July and August] when they were swinging it both ways, and in Sri Lanka, which is a difficult place to score hundreds. I wouldn’t put it down to desire or concentration or anything like that. We believe we are better players than that.”Owais Shah is England’s reserve batsman in this series, but he was overlooked for Bopara in Sri Lanka, and seems to have slipped further down the pecking order without actually doing anything right or wrong. “Nobody’s position is safe, but that’s always been the case,” said Collingwood. “There’s always going to be people waiting in the wings, and you need to do your job in the England side or your position is in doubt. That’s healthy for the England cricket team. As long as we win Test matches, hopefully we’ll stick together as a batting unit and keep developing in different conditions.”Looking ahead to the Napier Test, Collingwood hinted that England’s approach with the bat would be more purposeful, but stopped short of promising a run-fest. “We’ll score as quickly as we feel we can without taking a risk, that’s generally what we’ve tried to do,” he said. “The first goal is to get 400 on the board to put pressure on the opposition. How quickly we score them goes down to how well they bowl at us. We’re not going to be reckless and go out and say we’ll score at four and a half an over. The pitch dictates that.”I wouldn’t say there’s more pressure than usual,” he said. “It wasn’t going to be a canter coming over here. They bat right down to Nos. 7 and 8 and they’ve got a lot of skill in the bowling, so they are a tough side to beat. We were expected to come over here and steamroller them, but that wasn’t the kind of thoughts in our minds. We knew we’d have to play well and play tough cricket, and we got well beaten in the first game.”

The bouncer that didn’t bounce
There was concern before the start of the match that this track, given the cracks, might just turn out to be dangerous to the physical well-being of the batsmen. Any such fears were dispelled when Ishant Sharma, bowling between 135-140ks, could get most of his deliveries to end up ankle high for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had come up a bit for him. Nothing summed the low bounce better than the attempted bouncer by Ishant in the fourth over. Dug in his own half, the ball came up till Neil McKenzie’s waist, who accepted the unwrapped gift from outside the off stump, and hit it past mid-on.How early is too early?
Given that Sreesanth and Ishant were spraying the new ball around in the first three or four overs, not utilising the low bounce, it was surprising that Dhoni took 47 minutes and eight overs before falling upon Harbhajan Singh. Perhaps he wanted the pacers to stay on until they created enough rough. But once Harbhajan came, he stayed. He bowled 15 overs without break, from No. 8 to 36, and came back on in the 50th. In all, the medium-pacers bowled 15 overs out of the first 50.The blow
Hashim Amla is usually a delicate batsman who doesn’t really rely on power for his runs. But the one shot he got down to give an almighty swing to, had lethal results. When he swept Harbjajan, the ball was headed only one way and that was smack into Sourav Ganguly at forward short leg. He showed superb reflexes to turn around, and that must have saved him as the ball struck him flush on the helmet. Ganguly went off for about a session, came back, and took a swirling skier at midwicket.Bailed out
Harbhajan, Jacques Kallis, and the bails seem to have started an interesting three-way relationship, which sometimes leaves Harbhajan frustrated and sometimes Kallis. After Harbhajan suffered from the bails that wouldn’t budge in Ahmedabad, Kallis suffered the agony this time. Moving back and across to a big off-break, Kallis would have thought he had done well to cover it, but the ball hit his thigh, then the back of his gloves, and then gently, cruelly on to the stumps. The bail fell this time.

Worcestershire are confident they have a long-term future at New Road after meetings with the Environment Agency. While the club realise they are not a top priority Mark Newton, the chief executive, was positive about the discussions.”As you would expect, it was a constructive meeting. We totally understand where we are in the list of priorities but the meeting did help us on a number of fronts,” he said. “We are committed to staying at New Road and short term contingency plans are in place if there is another summer flood.”It would be a huge boost if government were to invest hundreds of millions of pounds into flood prevention measures along the River Severn but the reality is people’s homes and personal safety are far more important than a cricket ground. As we do on a regular basis, we will continue our dialogue with the Environment Agency to keep up with future climate change trends.”Cricket returned to New Road earlier this week when Worcestershire took on Warwickshire in a pre-season friendly. It was the first action at the ground since the mid-summer floods last year and the recovery process wasn’t helped when there were further floods during the winter.