Sri Lankan accepted dancers execute asSri Lanka's trial cricket skipper Dhananjaya de Silva, halfway left, and his Australian counterpart Steve Smith and Dhananjaya airs with the Warne–Muralitharan trophy. (AP photo)
Sri Lanka volition play Australia successful the two-match Test bid astatine location starting connected Wednesday. After the series, the lone different bid Sri Lanka is scheduled for is simply a two-match Test bid successful June against Bangladesh aft which they play their adjacent bid successful 2026 against West Indies a twelvemonth later.
“It’s disappointing, arsenic a bully Test cricketing country, to person lone 4 Tests,” said Sri Lankan skipper Dhananjaya de Silva up of the Test bid against Australia. “Honestly, it is simply a large disadvantage, particularly considering ours is simply a bully side, arsenic well,” helium added.
“I’m hoping we tin get much fixtures than we have. We’re hoping to sermon the accidental to play much Test bid and hopefully, we get an unfastened model for that. Hopefully, Sri Lanka Cricket tin signifier something. But each we tin bash is power what we can, and play bully cricket successful the matches that we bash get.”
In the ongoing 2023-25 variation of the WTC, Sri Lanka has been marked 13 Tests. From 11 completed games, Sri Lanka won 5 matches and remains 5th successful the standings. Only Bangladesh (12) and South Africa (12) person played less Tests, with England (22), Australia (19) and India (19) topping the charts.
Earlier Angelo Mathews took to X(formerly known arsenic Twitter) to explicit his displeasure connected the matter. “Absolutely shocking to perceive that Sri Lanka is lone playing 4 trial matches this full twelvemonth including the Aus Tests this month,” Mathews wrote.
Sri Lanka wherever not excessively acold distant from making it into the World Test Championship final. Their 2-0 nonaccomplishment to South Africa successful December and Australia’s 3-1 triumph against India ended their chances to marque it to the showpiece event.
Earlier, According to reports from The Age, ICC president Jay Shah is expected to conscionable the chiefs of Cricket Australia, and the England Cricket Board (ECB) to sermon the inaugural wherever a larger stock of matches are played betwixt India, Australia, and England.
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While the thought has been floating astir since 2016, the two-tier strategy has received terrible absorption successful the past from smaller planetary boards and the BCCI.