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England eye whitewash as Sri Lanka look for consolation
England’s final Test match of the summer sees them conclude their three-game series against Sri Lanka at the Oval starting today, with left-arm pace bowler Josh Hull set to make his international debut.
The hosts will be looking to make it six wins from six Test matches, after whitewashing the West Indies in July and amassing a 2-0 series lead against the Sri Lankans, though their biggest adversary between now and Tuesday may be the weather, with rain and fog forecast in south London for the next few days.
Sri Lanka will be ruing several missed opportunities in this Test series to seize the initiative against their host and play their way into winning positions.
Their curious decision to win the toss and bowl first at Lord’s last week seemed vindicated when they had England at 216 for six on the opening day, only for the imperious Joe Root to take the game away from them with two sublime centuries.
Their bowling at times at Lord’s were dreadful, particularly around the wicket to right-handers, and were ultimately aided by England eventually throwing their wickets away towards the end of their innings.
That being said, some of Sri Lanka’s catching has been very impressive.
The tourists will be looking to secure a consolation win despite the heavy odds against them and with some autumn-like conditions expected in South London.
Sri Lanka will be hoping for an improved batting display after some dismal performances from their top order batsmen.
Their senior batters, who between them have produced six fifties in 16 combined innings. Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva - have all had a fifty-plus score and yet have not made significant impressions.
Joe Root will deservedly receive a lot of credit but it’s been Gus Atkinson’s arrival to Test cricket that has arguably been the story of the summer so far.
The Surrey man’s 118 at number eight – as well as yet another five-wicket haul in the second innings – gave Root someone to bat alongside deep into the England innings and their first innings total of 427 was unlikely to be troubled by a fragile Sri Lankan batting card.
Atkinson is joined at the summit of the top England bowler market by the more experienced Chris Woakes, whose phenomenal home average in Tests was further improved with four wickets across the Lord’s fixture.
One to watch out for this weekend will certainly be Josh Hull. The Leicestershire left-armer only has 16 First-Class wickets to his name with an eye-watering average of 62.75.
From a batting perspective, stand-in Captain Ollie Pope will be determined to improve on a dire set of scores since replacing Ben Stokes as temporary England Skipper. (Agencies)
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