Lanka name squad without Sanath for Edgbaston Test

Sa'adi thawfeeq reporting from England

CRICKET: Sri Lanka named a squad of 12 for the second cricket Test against England starting at Edgbaston, Birmingham here on Thursday without veteran opener Sanath Jayasuriya.

Sri Lanka made one change from the squad that played at Lord's replacing Jehan Mubarak with Michael Vandort and they have also added fast bowler Lasith Malinga.

"We had a lengthy discussion yesterday with the senior guys and then we had a management meeting after practices. We are more or like to go in with the same 11 that played in the last Test match accept for Mubarak going out and Vandort and Malinga coming into the 12. Because of the weather we will not finalise the 11 until we have a look at the wicket," said Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene here Wednesday. Mubarak made 0 and 6 at Lord's.

"The issue with Sanath was there with his experience. But what we thought was that we had one game with Mubarak and it's not fair. Either we give him another game or try Michael because we haven't given him the opportunity," said Jayawardene. "Michael's Test record is not too bad actually compared to the others. We haven't actually given him a solid run. It's a fair enough decision we had to make. We'll give Michael a run and see where we end up."

"Once we get back home we can sit with the selectors and discuss whether we are going to continue with them or whether we have new prospects in Sri Lanka.

We have 2 Tests with South Africa and another 2-3 Tests with New Zealand before the World Cup. By the end of the year we should have two openers who should be playing for us for another 4-5 years in a consistent basis," he said.

Although his four Tests have been against Bangladesh, Vandort averages 68.20 with the bat. Jayawardene further stated: "When we started this tour we wanted to build the young guys up. It is something, which everyone knew.

With the pitch expected to be different to the one they got at Lord's and with Sri Lanka looking for more penetration in their bowling, the chances of Malinga making the final eleven looks bright.

The Sri Lankan paceman who is referred here as 'Malinga, the Slinger' enhanced his chances with a haul of five wickets for 79 runs in the drawn 4-day match against Sussex at Hove last week.

"There's a good chance of him playing," said Jayawardene who will turn 29 on Saturday, the third day of the Test.

"Definitely Malinga brings out something different to the play with his action. He is a wicket-taking bowler. He may be expensive but he can take wickets. That is what we want. But how he is going to get into our combination is another issue."

"If Malinga gets picked he be will part of a five-pronged bowling attack. I will use him as a wicket-taking bowler like I use Murali," said Jayawardene.

He said that if Sri Lanka opts for a 6-5 team (6 batsmen and 5 bowlers) one of the middle order batsmen will have to be left out and most probably it will be the baby of the side 19-year-old Chamara Kapugedera. Jayawardene rated the chances of his team beating England at Edgbaston as 'pretty good'.

"England probably will respect us and they will be wanting to beat us. We can prepare ourselves rather be underdogs and compete with them. There are a lot of areas from the first Test match, which we have to improve. We can't just compete two days in a five-day Test match. We have to compete each and every day and each and every session, which we will have to do to beat this English side because they are very strong," said Jayawardene.

"We need to take 20 wickets so we might make changes to our combination to accommodate that. We will go into the Test in a positive frame of mind knowing that we can handle this English team. There is a good chance that if we perform to our potential we can beat them," he said.

But England captain Andrew Flintoff said: "We saw last week that Sri Lanka are a talented and fighting side. Turning up tomorrow we can't be thinking about former glories we got concentrate on the job in hand."

SRI LANKA (from): Upul Tharanga, Michael Vandort, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Tilan Samaraweera, Tillakratne Dilshan, Chamara Kapugedera, Chaminda Vaas, Farveez Maharoof, Nuwan Kulasekera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Lasith Malinga.

ENGLAND: (from): Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Alistair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff (captain), Geraint Jones, Monty Panesar, Liam Plunkett, Matthew Hoggard, Sajid Mahmood, John Lewis.

UMPIRES: Darrell Hair (Australia) and Aleem Dar (Pakistan), TV umpire: Ian Gould (England), Match Referee: Alan Hurst (Australia)