Sri Lanka to tour England in June

by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka will tour England in June next year for a bilateral series. While three ODIs are confirmed, they could also end up playing Tests and T-20s depending on the fate of the World Test Championship final.

The English and Wales Cricket Board on Wednesday announced their schedule for the summer of 2021 and it includes bilateral series against the three leading Asian cricket playing countries – India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

SLC officials said that whether Sri Lanka will play a two Test series in England will be known later this week as ICC’s Directors make a call on whether to delay the finals of the World Test Championship. In that case, Sri Lanka’s stay in England will be extended by at least three more weeks where they will play two Tests and possibly a couple of T-20s.

At the moment, Dimuth Karunaratne’s side is slotted to play just three ODIs. Sri Lanka will start off their campaign in the north of England in Durham, where they were based for the most part of last year’s World Cup campaign. The Sri Lankans played West Indies and South Africa in Durham and travelled to the nearby Leeds for their games against India and hosts England.

The Sri Lankan side was put up at a hotel in the nearby Newcastle and most players struggled to deal with the extreme cold, which was mostly on single digit celsius.

After the opening encounter on the 29th of June, Sri Lanka will be in London for the second ODI on the 2nd of July at The Oval. Then they will travel to Bristol for the third and final game on the 4th of July.

There is going to be an overdose of cricket between England and India next year. ECB will host India for five Tests. They are also scheduled to tour India for five Test matches in February next year which means the two teams will be engaged in ten Test matches in 2021.

ECB will also host Pakistan for three ODIs and three T-20s.

England are also set to tour Sri Lanka next January for a two match Test series that was postponed due to the outbreak of the pandemic.

Sri Lanka will have a busy schedule in 2021. Soon after returning from a tour of South Africa in January, they will take on England and then will tour West Indies.

In between April and June – either side of tours of West Indies and England – SLC will try to finish postponed bilateral series involving India, Bangladesh and South Africa.