Sri Lanka wins toss and bats in 1st test against Australia

Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne won the toss and elected to bat first in the opener of the two-match test series against Australia at Galle International Stadium on Wednesday.

The home team has named three-spin bowlers including leg spinner Jeffrey Vandersay for his test debut. The 32-year-old has taken 25 wickets in 19 one-day internationals and seven wickets in 14 Twenty20 internationals for Sri Lanka.

Left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya and offspinner Ramesh Mendis, along with Vandersay, will add variety to the spin attack.

Sri Lanka is fielding a strong batting lineup with seven specialist batsmen. Asitha Fernando will be the sole seam bowler in the team with the option of calling up allrounder Angelo Mathews to bowl a few overs of seam in needed.

Australia has veteran Nathan Lyon, who has taken 427 wickets in 108 matches, leading the spin attack with Mitchell Swepson supporting him. The tourists have the option of using Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith who are handy leg-spin bowlers.

They have named two fast bowlers in captain Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc and a strong batting lineup with seven batsmen and batting allrounders.

The series in being played for Warne-Muralitharan trophy named after the two top bowlers in test history with 1,508 test wickets combined. This is the first series for the trophy after Australian great Shane Warne died in March.

A brief remembrance was held for Warne before the match.

Lineups:

Sri Lanka – Dimuth Karunaratne (captain), Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dinesh Chandimal, Niroshan Dickwella, Ramesh Mendis, Jeffrey Vandersay, Lasith Embuldeniya, Asitha Fernando.

Australia – Pat Cummins (captain) David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey ,Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Swepson.

Source: Associated Press
-Agencies