- All eggs in one basket for SL
With an alleged drinking culture and reports of indiscipline swirling around England following their recent 4-1 Ashes capitulation in Australia, the tourists will seek rebound against Sri Lanka, as they clash in the first One-Day International of a three-match series at the Khettarama Stadium in Colombo on Thursday (22).
Harry Brook’s team which arrived in these shores on Monday (19), have been beset by allegations of certain players drinking on a mid-Ashes beach break in the resort Australian town of Noosa with some even comparing it to a ‘stag-do.’
Ben Stokes' men had headed to the Queensland tourist playground after losing the first two Tests in Perth and Brisbane heavily.
The team had spent several days on the sand and around restaurants and bars, pursued by TV crews, paparazzi and reporters before travelling to Adelaide, where they duly lost the third Test as Australia retained the urn.
According to foreign media, unverified social media footage had also emerged appearing to show Test and ODI opening batter Ben Duckett drunk.
Hard on the heels of these allegations, the spotlight will also be on the England white-ball captain who had been reportedly fined 30.000 pounds by the ECB, following a nightclub brawl with a bouncer in New Zealand last October.
These alleged incidents had forced the England team management to impose a midnight curfew for the winter tour to Sri Lanka and the subsequent T20 World Cup, according to agency reports.
This was following their off field shenanigans alluded to the binging spree during the Ashes and the ill-discipline which engulfed the NZ tour that preceded it.
England will also have much soul-searching to do if they are to arrest a long form desertion in the 50-over format, where they have not tasted success in a bilateral series away from home, since a 2-1 series win over Bangladesh four years ago.
To further compound matters, the tourists who stumbled to a seventh place finish at the 2023 World Cup in India have gone on to lose five of six bilateral series since, while enduring a miserable Champions Trophy last year.
These stumbles have pushed England down to eighth in the ICC rankings, while Sri Lanka for their part are on a somewhat of an upward curve in the format having claimed big scalps of India and Australia in the same period, after their own dismal ninth-place finish at the previous World Cup.
Charith Asalanka’s team too will strive to improve on their fifth place in the ICC rankings with a series triumph here, which will likely boost their own morale ahead of the T20 world Cup which they will co-host with India from 7 February to 8 March.
The cynosure of all eyes from the home side’s perspective will be the eye-brow raising recall of their Test captain Dhananjaya de Silva to the white-ball setup by the new selection panel, with the island-nation now boasting three skippers across formats, with the trio all being a part of the T20 side.
The red-ball skipper had last featured in One-Day Internationals during the version’s showpiece edition three years ago, while Pramodya Wickramasinghe and co had brought him back from the cold for the drawn 1-1 three-match bilateral T20I series against Pakistan early this month.
The two teams will use the ensuing three-match T20 series in Pallekele – with the hosts led by Dasun Shanaka and a first full bilateral series for either country – as their timely pit stop for the game’s marquee event.