Rejigged tour can help Sri Lanka

	Angelo Mathews was playing a straight bat as Sri Lanka prepared for their first match of tour in England © AFP Enlarge
Related Links Preview : First audition for Atapattu News : Adapting to conditions key- Mathews News : Chris Adams to work with Sri Lanka News : Marvan Atapattu appointed Sri Lanka head coach News : SL in 'difficult place' after Farbrace exit Players/Officials: Angelo Mathews | Marvan Atapattu | Chris Adams Series/Tournaments: Sri Lanka tour of England and Ireland Teams: England | Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka may have their best chance of winning a Test series in England for many years. A schedule more sympathetic to their needs, an opposition in transitional mode and confidence gained from success in Bangladesh has given Sri Lanka an optimism not always shared by some of their predecessors.

The English leg of their tour begins on Tuesday. Sri Lanka will take on an Essex side including Alastair Cook in a 50-over game in Chelmsford, with further warm-up matches scheduled against Kent and Sussex ahead of the international fixtures which start in a week.

But while Sri Lanka's record in England is not encouraging - they have not won a Test in England since 2006 and have never won a series of more than one match in the country - circumstances are a bit different this time. On both their 2006 and 2011 tours Sri Lanka played the Test section of the tour ahead of the limited-overs section.

This time, however, they will have had a far greater chance to acclimatise to conditions. They will have been in Ireland or England for more than a month before the first Test and will have the opportunity to play their stronger suit - the limited-overs games - ahead of the Test series.

They also find an opposition lacking some of the pillars of its success in recent years - the likes of Andy Flower, Graeme Swann, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott - and having just enjoyed a memorable double-success in Bangladesh, where they followed victory in the Asia Cup by winning the World T20.

"We have started training a bit earlier than usual because we know the English conditions are not going to be easy for us," Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lanka captain, said on Monday. "If we can adapt ourselves as soon as possible, I am pretty sure the team will come good. The conditions and the weather are the main challenge we face.

"We are not trying to be complacent against an England team having made all of those decisions. Yes, they might be missing star players like Kevin Pietersen, but they still have enough potential to beat any team on any day, especially playing under English conditions. They will be very hard to beat.

"You know what happened in Bangladesh: they beat us quite easily in the sub-continent conditions, so you cannot be complacent and just have to go hard at them."

"The confidence levels are very high," the coach, Marvan Atapattu agreed. "This team comes with confidence and success."

Certainly if the batsmen play as straight as the tour management did when deflecting questions about Paul Farbrace's departure, they should fare well. Mathews did not believe the suggestion that Farbrace, who resigned the Sri Lankan coaching role to take the assistant coach's job with England just weeks before the tour, had any team secrets to impart and dismissed the idea that any of his squad resented the decision.

"We respect his decision," Mathews said. "He is a good coach and was part of our success. He was with us for a short period of time, not a very long period of time, but in those few months, he was pretty good. Everyone has his own choices. He has made his choice and we wish him all the very best.

"When it comes to an international cricket team, there are no secrets. You have so many videos of all the players, of the support staff as well. We had guys like Ajantha Mendis and Lasith Malinga come into the team, but you cannot really hide them from playing international cricket.

"Everyone knows a little bit about the opposition, so I don't really think he has all the inside information."

But Sri Lanka hope that the appointment of Chris Adams, the former Surrey coach, might provide an insight into England's players and tactics. Adams joined up with the team on Monday and will spend the rest of the tour with them. Kumar Sangakkara will also join up with the squad on Wednesday or Thursday, having completed his short stint with Durham.

"Chris Adams is to give me the information I need to know, about venues and players, during this tour," Atapattu explained. "We will try to pick his brains to improve our game and lend our support to the players. Yes, we will try to get inside information from him."

Sri Lanka's record in English conditions probably still leaves them as underdogs going into the Test series. But Peter Moores and Co face a far from straightforward test at the start of England's new era.

George Dobell is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo

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Former shadow coach Hathurusingha open to SL role

	Chandika Hathurusingha has been part of the New South Wales set-up for a few seasons © Getty Images Enlarge
Related Links News : Marvan Atapattu appointed Sri Lanka head coach News : Farbrace quits as Sri Lanka coach News : Sri Lankan shadow coach suspended Players/Officials: Chandika Hathurusingha Teams: Sri Lanka

New South Wales assistant coach Chandika Hathurusingha has said he is not averse to considering a position with Sri Lanka Cricket, if the board approaches him as it seeks a new head coach. Hathurusingha had forged a reputation for clear, incisive coaching and a firm, even-handed approach, during his time as a coach in Sri Lanka, but he had his SLC contract terminated in 2010 for disciplinary reasons.

Hathurusingha has also been highly regarded in Australia since re-launching his career there, most recently winning the Sheffield Shield with New South Wales this past season. He augments his state role by heading the Big Bash League's Sydney Thunder franchise.

"I am thoroughly enjoying what I have here in Australia, but just like players want to play for their own country, coaches also would love to work with their own country," Hathurusingha said. "Working with Sri Lanka is something I would never say never to. I have played and worked with a lot of the players before, and I've kept in touch with them as well. I know what the set-up is like."

Sri Lanka have not been helmed by a local coach since Roy Dias ended his tenure in 1999, but in Hathurusingha's time as the shadow coach in the national side there had been a groundswell of support for him to become the next head coach. In the wake of that decision, then-captain Kumar Sangakkara had gone as far as effectively recommending Hathurusingha for the head coach position in an impassioned letter to SLC that implored the board to keep him on staff. Four years later, many in Sri Lanka's cricket establishment still believe he is among the finest candidates for the head coach role.

Hathurusingha had not been formally approached by SLC, but suggested he had moved past the ill-feeling generated by his dismissal.

"I don't think talking about what's happened in the past will benefit either SLC or myself. But the board knows better than anyone what I can do as a coach, because that's actually where I started," he said. "It's about starting a conversation, which is what usually happens when it comes to these kinds of things. If that happens, something might come out of it."

In his letter to the board in 2010, Sangakkara had said Hathurusingha's "technical and strategic knowledge was second to none of the foreign coaches I have worked with before" and that in the previous year, Hathurusingha had "out-worked, out-thought and out-shone the foreign coaching staff within the system".

Marvan Atapattu, who has been with the national team since 2011, appears to be the current frontrunner for the head coach job, after he was named interim coach for two major upcoming tours over the next three months. SLC is yet to announce that it will advertise the vacancy, like the board did when it was in the market for a coach last year. The board is on the look-out for a new coach following Paul Farbrace's resignation last month.

A steady opening batsman in his playing days, Hathurusingha played 26 Tests and was among Sri Lanka's most experienced domestic cricketers, in possession of 10,861 first-class runs and 425 wickets.

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @andrewffernando

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Moeen's belief in his bowling

Moeen Ali is widely tipped to be England's main spinner in their first post-Ashes Test when they face Sri Lanka next month and having the extra expectation on his bowling is not something that fazes him.

Moeen's overall first-class bowling average is 40.35 but over the last two seasons for Worcestershire he has taken 64 wickets at 32.56 and also claimed seven at 18 on the Lions tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year. His all-round skills have already propelling him into the one-day and Twenty20 set-up and Moeen is now confident enough in his bowling to see it as an equal part of his game.

"I think now I see myself as an allrounder," he told ESPNcricinfo's #politeenquiries show where he answered readers questions. "I got picked by England for my batting but I think got picked over guys who have done more than me in the last couple of years because of my bowling. The more years go on the better I'm getting with my bowling."

He puts his improvement down to the responsibility he has been given at Worcestershire where he is often the frontline spinner - although this season has been able to operate alongside his close friend Saeed Ajmal - which has allowed him to develop his art that includes the doosra even if that delivery has yet to be seen at international level.

"I've probably bowled a lot more than most offspinners in county cricket over the last two or three years. I bowl in all forms which is nice," Moeen said.

He continues to relish is work alongside Ajmal who is happy to pass on his knowledge of the doosra, but Moeen knows that understanding the mechanics behind it is different to making it a success on the pitch.

"That's one of my best moments," he said of his time with Ajmal. "He says he hasn't shown many people [the doorsa], but says it's not the showing that's the hard part but the work you have to do."

And Moeen is not just trying to make a successful career for himself, but also act as inspiration for other Asian cricketers in the UK to reach the professional level. It is a responsibility he is happy to embrace and hopes that more players will come through the system after seeing him wear an England shirt.

"Being an Asian cricketer myself, watching me play for England, I think inspires Asian players to want to play," he said. "I don't see it as a burden, I see it as a positive attitude. I feel it's my duty to do it, to represent Asians."

Despite not playing against Scotland in Aberdeen, Moeen is expected to be named in England's T20 and ODI squads which will be announced on Tuesday morning for the matches against Sri Lanka.

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Rayudu, Simmons fifties in clinical Mumbai win

Mumbai Indians 160 for 3 (Rayudu 68, Simmons 68) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 157 for 3 (Finch 68, Warner 55*) by seven wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Lendl Simmons and Ambati Rayudu hit half-centuries to lead Mumbai Indians to an emphatic win over Sunrisers Hyderabad. The victory, Mumbai Indians' third in nine matches, kept the defending champions' campaign barely alive. Sunrisers Hyderabad were tied down after choosing to bat for all but the last two overs of their innings. David Warner helped his side take 33 off those two to push the total to 157, but it hardly mattered, as Simmons and Rayudu put on 130 runs for the second wicket in 14.3 overs to haul Mumbai Indians home with eight balls to spare.

Mumbai Indians lost CM Gautam second ball of the second over to Bhuvneshwar Kumar, but Simmons and Rayudu kicked on after a sedate start. The release came when Irfan Pathan was brought on following a couple of tight overs each from Dale Steyn and Bhuvneshwar. Simmons, who had tried to slog Steyn without success, found Irfan's pace to his liking, and slammed him for a couple of sixes and a four.

	Lendl Simmons made 68 off 50 at the top of the order © BCCI

Rayudu welcomed Amit Mishra with a charge and a straight six, and Mumbai Indians weren't looking back, with the boundaries coming regularly. Simmons did not let the legspinners settle and swung Karn Sharma for a four and a six. Rayudu gave the same treatment to Irfan as the allrounder went for 29 in two overs.

Shikhar Dhawan went back to Steyn in the 13th over but Mumbai Indians were approaching 100 by that time. Rayudu and Simmons took the fast bowler for a four each. Sunrisers had a chance in the next over but KL Rahul put down a top-edged skier off Simmons at deep midwicket with the batsman on 59 and the team score on 110. Simmons and Rayudu fell in successive overs for 68 each eventually but the game was almost over by then.

Dhawan felt Sunrisers were about 20 runs short on what he had called a good batting surface at the toss as he chose to bat. Dhawan himself scratched around for a while before being bowled by a full inswinger from Lasith Malinga. Rahul ran himself out going for a non-existent single but Aaron Finch had looked in nice touch all along.

He drove Corey Anderson crisply down the ground for fours and went after Pragyan Ojha, lofting and driving the left-arm spinner repeatedly through the off side for boundaries. Warner joined Finch and hit the odd boundary as well but the pair was not able to dominate amid some tight bowling from Harbhajan Singh and Jasprit Bumrah.

Finch holed out off Malinga in the penultimate over for 68 off 62 but Warner stepped up and launched the fast bowler for a couple of sixes. He ended the innings with successive fours off Kieron Pollard to finish on 55 off 31. Given Sunrisers' reputation of successfully defending moderate totals at their home ground, 157 did not appear to be an easy chase, but Rayudu and Simmons made it look so.

Abhishek Purohit is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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Bangar has brought the best out of youngsters - Bailey

	Bailey: 'Sanjay and Sri's [fielding coach R Sridhar] knowledge of Indian players has been exceptional' © BCCI Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: George Bailey | Sanjay Bangar Series/Tournaments: Indian T20 League Teams: Australia | India | Punjab T20

Sitting pretty on the top of the points table, Kings XI Punjab look set to make it to the qualifiers after a dominant run in the tournament and with five matches in hand. While their overseas batsmen and domestic bowlers have been instrumental in their seven wins, their captain George Bailey believes the coach Sanjay Bangar had made a lot of difference with his knowledge of domestic players.

"Sanjay and Sri's [R Sridhar, fielding coach] knowledge of Indian players has been exceptional," Bailey told ESPNcricinfo. "They have focused a lot on the younger players who have performed, particularly the guys who haven't played much [earlier]. A lot of Indians wouldn't have known about them but they have obviously seen something and their knowledge has been really important, one in selecting them and two, bringing the best out of them."

Apart from grooming the uncapped seamer Sandeep Sharma, Kings XI surprised Royal Challengers Bangalore on their home ground with offspinner Shivam Sharma, who struck twice and conceded only 26 runs in four overs.

The season's records for the leading run-scorer, the top three individual scores, the highest strike-rate (among batsmen who have faced at least 50 balls) and most sixes all belong to Glenn Maxwell, who has scored four fifties, the smallest score among them being 89. David Miller is not far away with a strike-rate of 162.29 and 297 runs from nine innings. Sandeep has chipped in with 13 wickets, removing batsmen like Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli twice each, while Akshar Patel, another uncapped bowler, has conceded only 6.26 per over.

"We've got a well-balanced team," Bailey said. "We have three batsmen in terrific form and we have shown consistent bowling and fielding performances and we've got a good bunch of guys in the coaching team."

When asked if he expected to be on top of the table throughout, Bailey said: "As a team nobody has any expectations of where you want to be. We just want to be consistent in the way we've played. T20 is obviously a game that involves a bit of luck and if you start playing well then the confidence and momentum are really important. We've won a few games and we've lost two too. Sometimes that's just going to happen, you have got to be convinced with the way you play."

Kings XI won their first five matches, all in the UAE. Their first defeat was in India, against Mumbai Indians, when Harbhajan Singh dismissed Maxwell and Bailey. The captain said there was hardly any difference between the two host countries when it came to pitches.

"There's not a huge difference in the pitches in the UAE, where they were a little slower. I think we're starting to see the wickets here turn a little bit more, so spin is probably having slightly more influence compared to the UAE. Grounds and conditions change quite a bit but there was not a huge difference."

Vishal Dikshit is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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Give it large for the ECB mix tape

The summer anthems playlist for the NatWest Blast encapsulates the sound of summer for cricket supporters across the UK. Or does it?

Everyone remembers their first mix tape. Mine was a mess; an unholy amalgamation of pop, racial profanity-riddled hip hop (plus Will Smith), rock - both prog and indie - and Royksopp. Music was taken to new lows, as J-Kwon led into Six Pence None The Richer before stumbling into Creed, then death by ambient Swedish sample. Such an eclectic, borderline horrendous mix was only destined for ridicule.

When the ECB offered all 18 counties the chance to put forward one song, then enlisted the public to decide the best 10, the danger was that the NatWest T20 Blast Playlist might plumb lower depths.

"Our search for the NatWest T20 Blast Summer Anthems Playlist has given us 10 songs that really encapsulate the spirit of summer for cricket fans," beamed ECB chief executive David Collier. Unverified sources revealed Collier was heard to exclaim a combination of the words "big" and "tune" as he played Derbyshire's nomination, Levels by Avicii, on loop for an entire afternoon.

Music seems to be the overriding theme for this year's competition, as evidenced by The Summer Sounds of Cricket - a glimpse of a post-apocalyptic future where Marcus Trescothick is our overlord on the ones and twos and county cricket's finest fight for our survival by rubbing together stumps, presumably to give us fire. Sign me up.

Quite how diplomatic discussions were over each team's choices is anyone's guess. For the time being, we can only speculate, and the thought of Dougie Brown locking his players in an Edgbaston changing room until the Bears settled on Flo Rida's Good Feeling is one I want to keep. So, too, is the vision of a disgruntled John Bracewell, flanked by Gidmans, storming Lord's and demanding answers as to how Duke Dumont's steel drums were overlooked?

First, the good news - Gangnam Style failed to make the preliminary 18. Sigh as you might - PSY no doubt will - but, quite simply, the county system's lack of early season West Indian influence nipped this in the bud. Few have taken to it with as much gusto as the boys in maroon, even displaying its emotional dexterity with a series of angry trots towards James Faulkner during their dramatic win over Australia in the recent World Twenty20.

Of those that didn't make the cut, the worst has to be Worcestershire Rapid's Dibby Dibby Sound. If you're not familiar, consider yourself lucky. But, if curiosity does get the better of you, be prepared for two days of that thumping beat reverberating about your skull as you fight the urge to replace every other word with "dibby", like a Smurf that surfaced too quickly. This recommendation would not have happened if Alan Richardson's was still around.

The final 10 has a bit of everything: hits, a dash of floor-fillers and the odd forgotten classic.

That Surrey's minions opted for Happy, which collected the most fan votes, might be down to their youthful makeup, allied to the fact that most of them spend the off-season in Australia's grade system. From Hobart to Brisbane, singlets and thongs clapped along to Pharrell Williams' obsession with roofless rooms while enjoying England's seemingly bottomless despair Down Under.

Yorkshire nail a tried and tested hit at number two with the Rolling Stones and Start Me Up. However, while a sensible choice, it has been a staple of Twenty20 cricket in this country for a good while. Heaven forbid, it suggests they did not exactly spend days thinking about it.

Thanks, then, to defending champions Northants who redress the balance with The Boys Are Back In Town down at nine. Nottinghamshire go for Embrace's escalating Ashes; a spine tingler that has scored at so many different sports that there is every chance it is by Kasabian.

Four to six is a combination that would not be out of place at a student union; perfectly encapsulating those first well-oiled steps onto the dance floor and that post 3am jaunt for glorified vices that inevitably end with a kebab/chicken parm/fried pizza depending on your whereabouts.

Middlesex form a circle, arms around one another, before jumping in unison to The Fratellis. Avicci hits - Collier goes wild - and then Place Your Hands (Reef) hits, just before the light comes back on to illuminate your collective shame. But it's OK because you've put your hands up.

The wiser, older heads of Somerset bring back some semblance of class with The Kinks before Hampshire undo it all. For a team that have shown an intrinsic appreciation of short-form success, Hampshire's introduction of Pitbull, who once rhymed the word 'Kodak' with 'Kodak', should be subject to an inquiry. That they manage to drag Ke$ha into the mix is the most impressive showcasing of mediocre talent since the Sydney Thunder. Bringing it all to a close, Leicestershire redeem things with a timeless worldie in Mungo Jerry's In The Summertime.

Whether this focus eventually manifests itself into onsite DJs remains to be seen. As the World Twenty20 showed, there was a lot to be said for a Bangladeshi man going through a midlife crisis, imploring spectators to quench his thirst for "noise".

Of course, it is easy to criticise Twenty20s showbiz frills, with our bitter in hand. Crictainment is not something totally embraced in this country, like sex on TV or tea out of a glass. Even when we tried, all we could muster were "walk on" girls and pizza on a sofa. We do not have the consistent weather to appease, nor the grassy banks to frolic. But what we do have is an appreciation of a good night out.

If T20 Friday nights are to be something, then let it be this: rapturous crowds living for the weekend, as Avicci blares through the PA systems and David Collier giving it large. You never know, it might actually work.

Vithushan Ehantharajah would be ESPNcricinfo's music critic if we had one

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RCB, Daredevils seek last gasps

Match facts

Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)

Big Picture

There won't be much to choose between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils when the two meet in Bangalore on Tuesday. But unlike a top-of-the-table clash between two formidable teams putting up their best defences against each other, this is really a contest between two sinking ships to see which one holds out for longer. Both have lost six out of their last seven matches, both have had their marquee players reduced to mere spectators, both have appeared lost in their strategies, both have taken hits at home despite playing more home games than others and barring a mathematical miracle, both are out of the league, three weeks before the final. Still, the match gives one team a chance to survive a little longer.

Royal Challengers are playing their third straight game before the doting Bangalore fans but it can only be counted an advantage if you win. The dream batting order, which includes four top internationals, has only flickered sporadically and the news of Chris Gayle's shoulder injury which may keep him out only aggravates their problems. Their bowling didn't look part of the problem earlier in the tournament but the manner in which they have buckled in the last three games points to further cracks.

Their opponents aren't in a happy place either. Kevin Pietersen pushed himself to the top of the order, just like Virat Kohli did the other day, and managed some feel-good runs but it is his team's stubbornness in holding back two of their best players - JP Duminy and Kedar Jadhav - that has been hurting them. Their bowling attack looks disconnected, rather than a unit. They played four straight games in Delhi and lost all four as their bowlers failed to defend the totals every single time.

Form guide

Royal Challengers Bangalore: LLLWL (most recent first)
Delhi Daredevils: LLLLW

Where they stand

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Seventh, with three wins in nine games
Delhi Daredevils: Eighth (last), with two wins in eight games

Previous encounter

They opened the tournament against each other in Sharjah, a match in which Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 49 and Yuvraj Singh scored a half-century to set up a comfortable eight-wicket win for Royal Challengers.

Watch out for

Royal Challengers have been inflexible with their team selections, opting for a seamer-centric bowling attack on a Bangalore pitch that has offered something to the spinners. Other teams have played an extra spinner (and won matches), but Royal Challengers have not budged. After the mauling at the hands of Steven Smith and James Faulkner, maybe there is a case for Shadab Jakati over Ashok Dinda.

Daredevils made three changes to their side in their previous match and had Pietersen opening the batting, marking a big change in approach. That didn't translate into Duminy coming up the order though. Duminy arrived at the crease in the 17th over. Daredevils are at that stage where a little bit of experimentation won't hurt, but will they?

Stats and trivia

• JP Duminy is the only Daredevils batsman to feature in the top-10 run-getters this season. None of their bowlers appear in the top ten
• 10.76 - Ashok Dinda's economy when he comes to bowl in the last four overs of an innings. It's the second-worst economy for a bowler (minimum 30 innings) in the last four overs, behind Munaf Patel's 10.97 and marginally better than Ishant Sharma's 10.64. He has also been hit for 30 sixes in these overs, third on the list of bowlers to concede most sixes in this period, behind Vinay Kumar and L Balaji.

Quotes

"If you keep losing, you've got to change a few things here and there."
Daniel Vettori, the Royal Challengers Bangalore head coach

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