Daily Mirror - Print Edition

Sri Lanka elect to bat first against England

21 Jun 2019 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}      

Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne won the toss and elected to bat first against England in their fifth World Cup fixture here at Headingley. Sri Lanka made two changes to their playing IX bringing in Avishka Fernando and Jeevan Mendis in place of Lahiru Thirimanne and Milinda Siriwardana

England: 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 James Vince, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Mark Wood

Sri Lanka: 1 Dimuth Karunaratne (capt), 2 Kusal Perera (wk), 3 Avishka Fernando, 4 Kusal Mendis, 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Jeevan Mendis, 7 Dhananjaya de Silva, 8 Thisara Perera, 9 Isuru Udana, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Nuwan Pradeep

Dimuth Karunaratne: We've got two changes, Lahiru and Milinda are playing. We've had some time to regroup and discuss about what went wrong. We were worried about it (the middle order) but I'm pretty confident we'll bounce back.

Eoin Morgan: I would have looked to do the same, it's the best time to bat early. We've got with the same line-up as Old Trafford. It gives a little bit of turn, which brings Adil and Moeen into the game. Our first priority is to get into the semifinals and if we do that, we might look at who gets to rest. (Moeen) is absolutely buzzing today and thoroughly deserves his 100th cap.