Nissanka to shine in Tests?

By Harsha Amarasinghe   
Pathum Nissanka who has been in the form of his life in the white ball formats, has returned to Sri Lanka Test squad after two years. Although first seen as a player who was ideal for Test cricket Nissanka, lost his spot in the red-ball squad after ten games despite averaging close to 40.   
The right handed batsman however, has been racking up runs in both T20s and ODIs - recently he broke into the top ten ODI batsmen in the World in ICC Rankings, but could he really make a big impact in England during the upcoming Test series?  
One of the first questions to be asked, is could he be named in the Playing XI as Sri Lanka has had a very settled batting line-up with Dimuth Karunaratne and Nishan Madushka opening while rest of the batting order featured Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandinal and captain Dhananjaya de Silva.   
If Nissanka is to be named in the playing XI, the most likely scenario is that he’d open the batting with Dimuth Karunaratne with Madushka dropping to the bench, but Madushka has also done fairly well in the opportunities that he had received averaging 42. It would be a really tough call for the selectors and captain to make.   
Kamindu Mendis who was outstanding for Sri Lanka in the Bangaldesh tour, looks comforting in batting at number 7, but he lost his batting form a bit in the last couple of months before he appeared to regain his form in the India ODIs. Although it looks very unlikely to happen, should Sri Lanka go ahead with that option, Nissanka would slotted in at 3 with rest of the batting line up dropping down with Silva at 7.   

England may not be without James Anderson but then again are still expected to field a very strong pace attack led by speed monster Mark Wood. However, the likes of Nissanka, Karunaratne could find the all-rounder Chris Woakes very challenging to play against as he does get the new ball to swing around. Gus Atkinson was the player of the series when they hammered the West Indies in July where he took 22 wickets in the series. While Sri Lanka top order does have the technique to face it, the conditions in which they are playing could make things very hard for them especially at Manchester.   
Sri Lanka have been playing 7-4 formation in the recent times with Prabath Jayasuriya being the premier spinner, but they could be tempted to go for a four- pace attack especially in Manchester with Dhananjaya de Silva looked very comfortable bowling his off-spinners. Asitha Fernando and Vishwa Fernando looked almost set to feature in the playing XI, it would be hard to ignore Kasun Rajitha’s capability to swing the ball on those conditions. It will be an interesting call whether to go with Lahiru Kumara or Prabath Jayasuriya.