Lankan Lions commenced their new series with England in Manchester. England was dismantled on 358 on Day 3 after taking a humongous lead of 128 and now Sri Lanka has scored 204 and took the lead of 82 runs.
Sri Lanka had a bad start in the second innings as they lost 6 wickets and now they need to stabilize the game without losing any wickets.
Mark Butcher slams Sri Lankan team
Sri Lanka had a bad start in the first test while batting first they got all out on 236 and now they are even struggling in the second innings too, same Sri Lankan team was in red hot form against India while playing ODIs and cut to now they haven’t performed well, concerns have been raised with Sri Lanka’s team, regarding there form former England batter Mark Butcher slams Sri Lanka’s team. Mark Butcher said:
“I don’t understand how a professional Test cricket team cannot be ready to do that on a day such as today. And that’s pretty much my rant over because it’s just, it’s unfathomable that they wouldn’t have had an idea as an absolute collective, not just the captain, you know, some coaches have millions of backroom staff for every cricket team at the moment. I will never know how they’ve gone out there unprepared and ready to go and go hard at England this morning.”
“I cannot understand for the life of me. I really can’t understand how at the start of a day’s play you do not know exactly what you’re doing. Day three, huge day, you’re still very much in the Test match, you’ve hung in there for two days and showed a lot of character. How do you not know, every single man on that field knows, exactly what is going to be happening first ball.”
“Who’s bowling, what fields we are going to have, what our plan is in terms of keeping Smith perhaps away from the bowling or putting him under pressure when he starts again, and that just completely blows my mind,” added Butcher.
Will Sri Lanka make any upset from their side or its England who will take the lead in the three-match series?