1st Test

Dates- Thursday 1st- Monday 5th August 2019.

Venue- Edgbston, Birmingham

2nd Test

Dates- Wednesday 14th -Sunday 18th August 2019.

Venue- Lord’s London.

3rd Test

Dates- Thursday 22nd -Monday 26th August 2019.

Venue- Headingley, Leads.

4th Test

Dates- Wednesday 4th -Sunday 8th September 2019.

Venue- Old Trafford, Manchester.

5th Test

Dates- Thursday 12th -Monday 16th September 2019.

Venue- The Oval, London.

https://www.facebook.com/1819332434999684/posts/2224509311148659?sfns=cl 9 News Illawarra

A strapping fast-bowler who played 34 Tests and 17 one-day internationals for Australia, Walker was also a key figure in the introduction of World Series Cricket in the late 1970s.

The 263rd man to wear the Baggy Green, Walker claimed 138 Test wickets and 20 in one-dayers between 1973 and 1981, including 12 wickets in his first two Tests and a career-best figures of 8-143 against England at his beloved MCG in 1975.

He is best remembered for his unique bowling action, which earned him the nickname ‘Tangles’, while he forged a strong career in the media following his playing days.

A highly-popular author and public speaker, Walker was also a member of Channel Nine’s iconic Wide World of Sports commentary team.

“Max was an outstanding cricketer who played an important role in the emergence of successful Australian cricket teams in the 1970s,” said Cricket Australia CEO James Suitherland.

“It was a golden era of Test Cricket under the captaincy of Ian and Greg Chappell, and Max’s medium fast bowling and his unmistakeable bowling action were a feature of those teams, and then in the late 1970s when he joined World Series Cricket.

“The cricket world will be deeply saddened to hear of Max’s sudden passing. As a cricketer, with ball or bat in hand, Max was always fiercely competitive. He was a genuine crowd favourite wherever he played – and nowhere more so than at his beloved MCG, where he had also played senior football prior to his Test debut. “On behalf of everyone at Cricket Australia our deepest sympathies go out to Max’s family, friends and all those in cricket who had the pleasure of dealing with him.

“He was a great character, with a big smile and positive approach to life. He will be sadly missed.

“I am very pleased to be here as always this time not in a cricket capacity,” As boon said “I am in a role as an ambassador for the Tasmanian government who has initiated a trade mission through South East Asia. I’ve accompanied this delegation through India and Sri Lanka the purpose essentially is to initiate relationships through education, through government ministries on things that Tasmania and Sri Lanka have a lot in common. The Tasmanian government would like to open up relationships for inter trade or skills, high products in hospitality industry such as wine and some of the other produce.

“We know Sri Lanka are very much aware of their natural heritage and environment as we are. Over half of our state is in a protected status and heritage forests are renowned worldwide. From all reports the delegates have enjoyed the whole thing they love Sri Lanka and they’ve formulated some nice introductions and relationships with corresponding skill sets and industry here,” he said.

Boon said that he along with another former renowned cricketer from Tasmania and Australia Ricky Ponting were invited by the Tasmanian government as ambassadors to be part of the trade delegation because of their connection with cricket.

“Ricky Ponting helped them for the first half and I came in for the second half of the mission. We are both Tasmanians and we played cricket in all those countries so we have in common as well. Our cricketing careers give us an opportunity to go back to countries that love cricket as we do. People know us so it makes it easier with some of the introductions to move forward and through people’s knowledge of us to help the government and the delegates,” Boon said.

The number of times he’s been to Sri Lanka Boon said he had lost count. “I couldn’t put a number of the times I’ve been to Sri Lanka maybe about 15 to 20 times, five times in the last six years with the ICC. I’ve come as a player then as a selector during the World Cup and a couple of times with youth cricket. I met some very good friends here as well.

“I still recogise a lot of things that have not changed since I first came in 1977. Those things are mainly historical in buildings. It’s wonderful that they have been kept in the way they have and modern Colombo in Sri Lanka has been built around that. The infrastructure in Colombo is to utilize the seaside in everything Galle Face road there’s more development happening it’s an obvious sign with constructions and overseas investments that the Sri Lankan economy is growing and tourism is going forward in leaps and bounds,”| said Boon.

“One of the biggest changes I’ve seen and hope to experience one day is how you opened up the east coast again and the number of resorts that have been built there beautiful on that side of the island. Colombo is safe, safe as any city can be I’ve never felt under threat here, the people have been very friendly, they are very open, helpful and this makes it enjoyable to come here. With my family, my wife has been here with me four times. My youngest daughter came with us last year and loved it. So whenever I am down, I sign up and see whether it is Sri Lanka that I am assigned to as match referee.”

ON CRICKET

Comparing the cricket played by Australia and Sri Lanka, Boon said that Sri Lanka cricket is not at all as Australian cricket at the highest level.

“I remember playing in Sri Lanka’s first ever Test match in Perth (in 1987) and it finished in three and a bit days but I think it’s fantastic where Sri Lanka cricket has gone suppose at a different level very similar to Tasmania cricket. In the Sheffield Shield we are the youngest but we grew, won a couple of Sheffield Shields and one-day competitions and produced cricketers for Australia. Sri Lanka has won series moved forward and they produced some of the best cricketers of the modern era. Your cricket has gone in leaps and bounds,” said Boon.

“I was not amazed there’s still some quality. I watched Sri Lanka play in the ODI series in England which I was overseeing. I secretly thought Oh, the Test series with Australia they are not going to have any chance. But within a very short space of time they’ve learnt their lesson. Some of those young kids in England through Fordy (Graham Ford), through Angelo’s (Angelo Mathews) leadership and the other coaching staff they’ve moved that forward at a rapid pace and they played beautifully in the Test series against Australia,” he said.

“I was not surprised at all. It’s a mental thing to get over that and move forward. To me that’s what they did. Australia didn’t play at their best especially facing the old wily Rangana (Herath) and the young kids went really well the young off-spinner (Dilruwan Perera). The batters especially young (Kusal) Mendis and (Dinesh) Chandimal they took the Australians and played exceptionally well to give the bowlers enough runs for them to bowl Australia out.”

However Sri Lanka failed to produce the same form in the ODI and T20I series which they lost to Australia.

“It’s a totally different game to me from Test cricket to ODI and T20I cricket. There are changes in personnel and format of the game. Just because they won the Test series doesn’t mean that they can automatically win in the other two formats,” said Boon. “I think probably what may have occurred is with the change of some personnel with that team who had not experienced defeats in Test cricket they come with a positive mental attitude to their roles and uplift the other guys who have been flat-footed during the Test series.”

Boon played for Australia in 107 Tests and 181 ODIs between 1984 and 1996 as a right-hand top order batsman. He was man of the final when Australia won their first World Cup under Allan Border in 1987. After retiring from all cricket in 1999 Boon accepted a position in marketing with the Tasmanian Cricket Association in Hobart and in 2000 replaced Geoff Marsh, his mate and former opening partner, as an Australia selector. Since 2011, he has been and ICC Match Referee which keeps him busy for six months of the year.

The second game of the five-match series is at the same venue today and Sri Lanka expect the curator to come up with a pitch that is not extremely dry but dry enough for their spinners to come into play.

What Sunday’s game revealed was that no matter what the surface was Australia had a battery of fast bowlers headed by Mitchell Starc to exploit any condition.

Australian skipper Steve Smith and spinner Nathan Lyon during practice at the R Premadasa Stadium nets.
The tour of Sri Lanka has been a memorable one for Starc who reached a century of wickets in Tests as well as ODIs becoming the quickest in the history of the game in the latter format.

The addition of one-day specialist James Faulkner (man of the match in the 2015 World Cup final against New Zealand) in the Australian line-up has given their bowling more teeth. Starc and Faulkner combined to take seven wickets for 70 runs in 20 overs to strangle the Lankan batting and restrict them to a total of 227 that was within reach of Australia despite the threat of spin.

Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathew admitted the difference Starc and Faulkner made to the match.

“Starc bowled really well in the Tests and now in the ODIs. We have a clear plan for him – to refrain from attacking him, so that we don’t give him wickets,” said Mathews at the pre-match press conference yesterday.

“If we can score 40 or 50 runs off him, we feel that we can catch up against the other bowlers. Because he’s bowling well, we should give him that respect. But at the same time we also have to put his loose balls away,” he said.

“With James Faulkner, his variations were excellent on that pitch, because of how dry it was. We struggled with those variations, so we’ll come with a plan tomorrow.”

Sri Lanka who were quite successful with their spinners in the three Tests went into the first ODI hoping to repeat it in the fifty-over format as well, but Australia’s fast bowler’s did an excellent job to keep them down to a total that in the end proved insufficient for their bowlers to defend.

Boosted by their win in the first ODI, Australia will be looking to extend their 1-0 lead in the series by winning today’s match as well.

From Sri Lanka’s viewpoint they will need to come up with a bigger total than they did on Sunday.

Mathews said that they don’t want to meddle with the batting line-up after just one game which means the batters will remain the same.

“No idea of changing the batting order we might perhaps make one change if required to the team. For most of the time we plan to go with the same team according to the pitch,” said Mathews.

“We’ve included Angelo Perera for injured fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep (hamstring injury) and he along with Seekkuge Prasanna are in the fray to be selected for tomorrow’s game.”

Commenting on Angelo Perera’s selection coach Graham Ford said, “The selectors felt that he played really well in England. He’s a very capable player. I remember him from the first time I was involved with the team. He has a chance of playing. He had a good net today so there’s a chance that he could be considered, yes.”

Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews displays the new ODI T-shirt at the pre-match media conference at R Premadasa Stadium yesterday which his team will wear during the five-match ODI series starting today. (Pic by Samantha Weerasiri)
The Australian batsmen were defeated by spin in the Test series which they lost 0-3 and it seems there won’t be any respite for them going into the ODI series as well with the pitches likely to be on similar vein.

“The Aussies are a very competitive team, inside and outside of Australia.

We have to play our best cricket to beat them. We did that in the Test series. Now it’s a fresh start. We’ve got some new faces joining the squad for the ODIs. It’s going to be a zero start for both teams,” said Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews.

“We came into the Australia series thinking we could do well in our home conditions. We had to prepare ourselves to the best of our ability. I thought our support staff did a great job preparing us for the series.

“To win a series against a number one team – especially against Australia – meant a lot to us. The confidence levels after that Kandy match turned around. The boys had a lot of confidence and believed in themselves, and that’s why they turned it around. The confidence levels are pretty high and we hope to continue that in the one-day format as well.

“The wicket looks pretty dry once again. In this part of the world the spinners play a major role in the one-dayers, Tests and T20s. Unfortunately we don’t have an XI. We’re yet to decide and we’ve got a selection headache at the moment.

“We’ve got so many spinners to choose from, a good set of batters and a couple of fast bowlers. We’re yet to decide whether we want to go with two spinners and two fast bowlers or three spinners and one fast bowler,” he said.

The selection headache stems from having too many spinning all-rounders in the squad like veteran opener Tillakaratne Dilshan and middle order bat Dhananjaya de Silva both of whom can bowl off-breaks and Milinda Siriwardana who can bowl left-arm spin in addition to his batting.

“We’ve got fast-bowling options as well with myself and Thisara Perera included in the squad, so you’ve got so many options to choose from.. It depends on the wicket. We’ll come back tomorrow and take the final call,” said Mathews.

One position that Mathews confirmed was the opening slot where he said that Dilshan and Kusal Perera would open. “There won’t be that many changes in the batting.”

Sri Lanka has included two uncapped players in their squad – teenage opening batsman Avishka Fernando and left-arm spinner Amila Aponso. While Fernando is very unlikely to get a game today the possibility of Aponso playing cannot be ruled out.

“I haven’t seen much of them but the selectors have. They say those two are very good. Avishka looked really good in the centre yesterday,” Said Mathews. “Most importantly we wanted to share that dressing room atmosphere and the experience with a younger player like him. Especially because we’re playing at home we have the advantage of bringing in an under-19 player to share the dressing room with the likes of Dilshans and Chandimals.”

All-rounder Thisara Perera despite his consistent failure to deliver has been given another opportunity to showcase his talent against the Australians.

“Thisara is a very important player. He hasn’t performed extremely well – the way we would have liked him to or he would have liked to. But he’s a character who could turn things around on any given day with bat or ball.

We’re hoping he’ll come good in this series,” said Mathews. There is no Rangana Herath to torment the Aussies in the ODI series but there are plenty of spinners in the line-up Mathews can call-up.

Given Australia’s susceptibility to spin bowling, as was seen in the Test series, it’s hard to imagine Sri Lanka won’t stock their side with slow bowlers.

The three Test surfaces provided ample assistance for the spin bowlers, but Australia opener Aaron Finch said the wickets for the limited-overs series might play a little fairer.

“There’s not as much wear and tear (on a one-day pitch as a five-day Test wicket),” Finch said when asked if the pitch at Premadasa Stadium resembled a five-day wicket.

“You assume that the wicket is going to generally be pretty true. There might be a little bit of spin there which makes it hard to score when you first come in against spin,” said Finch.

“One-day wickets around the world are pretty consistent and pretty true. But we’ll have to wait and see. They might shave all the grass and dry it out a bit more and it might turn big,” he said.

Finch is expected to pair of with David Warner as openers with skipper Steve Smith expected to occupy the number three slot followed by Shaun Marsh or Usman Khawaja and then George Bailey who has been the rock of Australia’s ODI middle-order. The 33-year-old has played 76 ODIs including 29 games as captain, and scored a century against India in Perth in January. Bailey also boasts a remarkable record in Asia, averaging 58.54 in 13 innings with a top score of 156.

Fast bowler Mitchell Starc who had an excellent Test series with 24 wickets on spin-oriented pitches will spearhead Australia’s bowling. Starc’s strike rate (24.6) and average (19.79) puts him in the upper echelon of 50-over bowlers, and the left-armer is just two scalps away from 100 in ODI cricket.

Former Australia fast bowler Craig McDermott believes Starc’s imperious Test form makes him a complete package.

“I think he (Starc) has come a long way in the last 18 months, two years,” McDermott told The Unplayable Podcast. “He’s the best one-day bowler and T20 bowler in the world. He’d have to be No.1 picked in our team for all three forms going forward.”