By Srian Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka will have to address several weak areas that undid them in the first test at Old Trafford, perhaps more than anything the fact of nipping in the bud of a second potential support bowler for Asitha Fernando and Prabath Jayasuriya where leggy Jeffrey Vandersay might have been the bottom-line to a compatible combination that could have got the better of the English as Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva looks to the prospect of a face off at the hallowed Lords.

Sri Lanka’s critical areas stretch from poor starts centering around Dimuth Karunaratne and Nishan Madushka with fliting news buoyant factor that Pathum Nissanka with a credible form pedigree was likely to come in to a necessarily centered middle order failures as well that proved costly. The strictly cricket walk Dhananjaya and the think tanks would be confronted to plugging these grey areas to the perfection of matching England shot for shot and ball for ball in the harsh rigors of test cricket there is no room for weak links against a highly marshalled England in well-oiled batting and bowling dictates demonstrated by negating challenging phases to going through.

The tough call the Lankan think tank stands confronted is to achieving that cohesive compact oneness to shedding reliance on individual brilliance that was their high point, but which though wasn’t sufficient to meeting the demands of taxing 5-day test cricket to coming to terms with a high riding England despite the absence of regular captain Ben Stokes.

In such a bad scenario case, the form of Kusal Mendis in particular and young Nishan Madushka remains a critical concern area to evening up while plugging the shaky bowling department is a strong pointer to looking at Vandersay who wrecked India back home recently in an ODI, but who remains an option to playing the English with spin which is a susceptible weak link in their batting department.

England are likely to rope in Nottinghamshire pace bowler Olly Stone after a 3-year absence to replacing the thigh strained Mark Wood with uncapped Leicestershire quick Josh Hull also named in a 13-man squad.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankans critical concern as to the costly ball change by the umpires particularly aired by Angelo Mathews who was at the receiving end in losing his wicket 6 runs after resumption on 59 was a questionable move that the higher officials must look at. Sri Lanka crashed from a well placed 146 for 4 at that stage.

England squad: Ollie Pope (c), Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Harry Brook, Jordan Cox, Ben Duckett, Josh Hull, Dan Lawrence, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes,

Sri Lanka squad: Dhananjaya de Silva (c), Dimuth Karunaratne, Nishan Madushka, Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis (vc), Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Kamindu Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara, Nisala Tharaka, Prabath Jayasuriya, Ramesh Mendis, Jeffrey Vandersay, Milan Rathnayake