June 15, Thursday
Venue: The Rose Bowl, Southampton
**Timings: **
1:15pm (US-CST)
18:15pm (GMT)
11:15pm (PST)
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**England focus for Twenty20 clash **
New captain Andrew Strauss has promised England will be deadly serious about their Twenty20 game against Sri Lanka.
The 20-over game has been dismissed as a slog-fest but this clash precedes five crucial one-day internationals.
“For the counties in the first year or two it was a bit of a knockabout and then tactics came in and it became a very serious game,” said Strauss.
“In international cricket it starts this week. We want to win - we can set the tone for the one-day series.”
Kevin Pietersen has recovered from hamstring trouble to take part and Paul Collingwood passed a fitness test on Thursday morning but Glen Chapple’s abdominal strain has ruled him out the squad.
Replacement Kabir Ali is still in action for Worcestershire and will only join the squad in time for Saturday’s one-day international at Lord’s. Strauss will lead the side in the one-day series, with Michael Vaughan (knee) and Andrew Flintoff (ankle) injured.
But he has more captaincy experience than either of those two in the Twenty20 format having skippered county side Middlesex.
And he is under no illusions about the task he will face against a big-hitting Sri Lanka side in the night-time match at Hampshire’s Rose Bowl ground.
“It is carnage, in a word. You’ve got to have thought things through before going out and then play it how you see it,” Strauss told BBC Radio Five Live.
"There’s not a lot of time to think about fielding or bowling changes but one little change can be the difference between winning and losing.
“There’s a lot of pressure on captains - it’s fast and frenetic but it’s over pretty quickly.”
England have only played one previous Twenty20 international, a resounding 100-run victory over Australia at the same venue which set the tone for the Ashes series. However five of the six new faces in the squad - Chapple, Tim Bresnan, Alex Loudon, Jamie Dalrymple and Ed Joyce - have played regularly at county level.
Sri Lanka have a Twenty20 domestic competition but have never played an international.
Assistant coach Trevor Penney confirmed: “They’ve just had one or two games, but not a lot.”
Their warm-up match at Arundel on Tuesday was washed out before the tourists had a chance to bowl.
But former Warwickshire batsman Penney said: "With the bowling side of things, we’ve had two one-day games and done OK.
“We’re not too worried about not getting the chance to bowl again.”
The match begins at 1915 BST to allow the crowd to watch England’s World Cup match against Trinidad and Tobago on two big screens erected at the ground.
Strauss conceded England’s cricketers are unlikely to dominate the back pages on Friday morning but says the best thing they can do to regain the limelight is win matches.
“It’s great to see the whole country behind the England football team but from our point of view it’s about victories,” he added.
“If we can string a few victories together we’re going to get cricket back in the headlines.”
**England (from): **AJ Strauss (capt), ME Trescothick, AN Cook, IR Bell, KP Pietersen, PD Collingwood, EC Joyce, JWM Dalrymple, AGR Loudon, GO Jones (wkt), LE Plunkett, SJ Harmison, SI Mahmood, TT Bresnan, K Ali.
Sri Lanka (from): DPMD Jayawardene (capt), KC Sangakkara (wkt), ST Jayasuriya, WU Tharanga, TM Dilshan, CK Kapugedera, RP Arnold, MF Maharoof, WPUJC Vaas, SL Malinga, M Muralitharan, CRD Fernando, PDRL Perera, CM Bandara.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/5079904.stm
