04:26 PM
Good evening
And welcome to live coverage of the second T20 international between England and Sri Lanka. It’s rare that teams play matches on successive days, even in franchise/domestic leagues and it seems odd that the ECB has shoehorned one into Thursday night when they could have had a Friday night Euro-free fixture on Friday night by the Taff. But who are we to complain. Always good to have a match on or we might be forced to do something else.
Eoin Morgan, after Jos Buttler’s brilliance in Wednesday’s comprehensive eight-wicket victory with 17 balls to spare, promised changes in tonight’s line-up which, hopefully, will mean a recall at least for Moeen Ali even if Sam Billings, Liam Dawson, Tom Curran and Dave Willey are made to wait until Saturday for a game.
Adil Rashid and Wanindu Hasaranga, the leg-spinners, were terrific last night on the series’ only fresh pitch and they should be similarly effective on one that now has some wear on it tonight. Sri Lanka, who won their first three T20is against England in this country are trying to rebuild quickly for the T20 World Cup in October but we should not forget their pedigree, they have played in three of the six finals, winning one and although the hair of their second golden generation has turned silver, they still produce resourceful, savvy cricketers, particularly in Asia, who will not be blown away in India in the autumn.
As for England, there are still one or two issues to address. It would have been good to see George Garton in this format rather than the 50-over squad. England need a genuine left-arm quick to challenge Willey and Sam Curran should the ball not swing consistently throughout the tournament. It would be useful to see Liam Livingstone have a bat and see where he stands vis a vis Billings as the reserve batsman once Ben Stokes is fit and also, if Joe Root has definitely (and foolishly) been ruled out by the selectors despite scoring most runs in 2016 (249 @ 50 and a strike rate of 147), it would be interesting to see him have a go at No3 in case Dawid Malan’s slow starts in India carry on and rule him out of the side later in the competition.