Hoggard's injury worries England against Sri Lanka in 2nd Test

By Ranjan Anandappa

CRICKET: It will be a typical SSC pitch with the first hour of play on the first day assisting pace and then gradually easing out to be a batsmen-friendly one when the second cricket Test between England and Sri Lanka starts today.

After winning the first Test, the Lankans have something to crow about, prior to the second Test. Two of their top players Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan, probably for the first time in the country's cricketing history, together have secured the top spots in the batting and bowling in the ICC rankings.

Sangakkara, on virtue of his batting, scoring over 150 runs in an innings in four consecutive Test matches, and only the ninth batsman to score hundreds against all Test playing nations, has been elevated, to the top batting spot ahead of Australian Ricky Ponting and South African Jaques Kallis who were earlier placed first and second in the ICC rankings.

He struck two double hundreds against Bangladesh in Colombo and Kandy.

Thereafter in Australia after missing the first Test in Brisbane due to injury, Sangakkara hit a blistering 192 in the second innings of the Second Test in Hobart while chasing a victory target of over 500 runs.

"The SSC pitch is a traditional one that we have seen in the past, and if the side batting first and the openers could survive the first hour or so, it will help the rest of the batsmen to build up a substantial score. It should be a pitch similar to the one at Asgiriya," said the national curator Anuruddha Polonowita.

Skipper Mahela Jayawardena said that the team will have to take it up as they did in the first Test and make sure that they don't let England come back at them.

"Without Sanath, obviously Upul Tharanga will open, but we haven't discussed anything more than that, because we just need to have a look at the wicket probably today and find the right combination," said the Sri Lankan captain.

However, Sri Lanka is likely to go with three medium pacers and a solitary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

They will miss the spinning finger of Sanath Jayasuriya, who has retired from Test cricket, and the additional spinners job will be bestowed on either Jehan Mubarak or even Chamara Silva.

He further said that the first day of any Test wicket in the first session will be very crucial. There is going to be something in the wicket,but what we need to realise is it is five days of Test cricket. You just need to make the right decision and make sure you play to your strength, conditions and work really hard.

"Even though I have played a lot on the SSC surface, it is difficult for me to read the wicket just by looking at it. We'll just wait and see, as our guys are experienced in assessing conditions and I am sure we can get the right combination."

"The conditions are different at the SSC and one must get use to it and do the right thing, stick to the basics and focus on a good Test match", Mahela Jayawardena said.

Referring to the first innings batting failures in Australia a couple of times and then against England, Jayawardena said that it will not be an on going thing, but we need to put a lot of effort while batting in the first innings and make sure we get a big score as in a Test match the first innings is very important.

England 1\0 down in the three Test series, are having a few injury problems at the moment.

Mathew Hoggard, the pacemen, who took 4 early wickets to send Sri Lanka reeling in the first innings, will most probably opt out from the second Test. James Anderson and Stuart Broad are the two candidates to join left-armer Ryan Sidebottom to share the new ball.

Sri Lanka (from): Mahela Jayawardena (Captain), Kumar Sangakkara, Michael Van Dort, Upul Tharanga, Chamara Silva, Jehan Mubarak, Prasanna Jayawardena, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando, Malinga Bandara, Sujeeva de Silva.

England (from): Alistair Cook, Michael Vaughan (Captain), Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Matt Prior, Ryan Sidebottom, Mathew Hoggard, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Monty Panesar, Owais Shah, Steve Harmison, Graeme Swan.