Sri Lanka brings new challenges, but a familiar environment

While their past four Test campaigns have been fought on sea-friendly pitches in Britain, New Zealand and at home, the Australian men's outfit embark on their two-match tour to Sri Lanka with a clear understanding of what awaits them.

In a quirk of the ICC's strangely arbitrary Future Tours program, not only is Australia visiting the Tropical Teardrop for the second time in less than three years (after a solitary Test tour there in the decade prior), but both matches are scheduled on familiar territory.

As in mid-2022, the battle for the Warne-Muralidaran Trophy – which Australia is holding after drawing the previous match 1-1 – will take place exclusively at the Galle International Stadium.

This means that a large proportion of the players expected to be named in a 16-man touring party later this week will not only have recent experience in Sri Lankan conditions, but these insights will relate specifically to the pitches which they will play in the southern coastal region. city.

Everything from the impact of the strong winds that can blow through the exposed stadium on the adjacent Laccadive Sea, to the hometown's penchant for grassless surfaces that favor spin from day one, will be well known to tourists when they arrive in less than three hours. to soften.

One of the only noticeable differences between the upcoming clash and the June-July 2022 Tests will be the seasonal change, with January and February among the coolest and driest months in Galle.

The other shift seems likely to revolve around the composition of both teams' bowling attacks, with the top-order batting personnel expected to be very similar to that of two and a half years earlier.

Although Australia's 3-1 win in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series against India this week secured their qualification for next June's World Test Championship final against South Africa at Lord's, the national selection panel has no plans to make any radical changes to feed.

Teenage opener Sam Konstas could be retained after the explosive start to his Test tenure against India, but the selectors have also recently shown a preference for using Travis Head as Usman Khawaja's opening partner on subcontinental pitches.

That was a forced move during the 2023 tour to India, where David Warner suffered an arm injury in the first Test, but Head's willingness to take on the new ball when batting conditions are best is seen as a blueprint for the play in Asia.

Despite his poor returns against India's attacking weapon Jasprit Bumrah this home summer, Khawaja remains Australia's best-performing batsman on subcontinental circuits during the team's most recent visits to Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, dating back almost three years.

With 966 runs at 74.31 with three centuries in that time, the 38-year-old's ability to counter spin and play the moving ball late has evolved considerably since his troubles in Sri Lanka in 2016 when he took his place in the XI lost after being dismissed twice. over the course of one day in Galle.

Australia's next best-performing batters in Asia during that period are Marnus Labuschagne (563 runs at 40.21) and Steve Smith (522 at 47.45), who each posted centuries in the second Test in Galle in 2022.

The only other batsman to reach triple figures in Asia during the Andrew McDonald (coach) and Pat Cummins (captain) era is all-rounder Cameron Green, who remains unavailable after undergoing back surgery last year.

Cummins has already indicated he is unlikely to take part in the upcoming series, with his wife Becky expecting the couple's second child in the coming weeks. Smith is being tipped to resume the captaincy despite a 0-3 defeat when he led the 2016 team to Sri Lanka.

Head, who is co-vice-captain of the current Test team alongside Smith, has an almost identical record in the past three Asia series as his South Australian teammate and Test keeper Alex Carey with 326 runs at 29.64 compared to Carey's 329 at 29.45.

The only other specialist Australian batsman to average over 25 on these tracks in the subcontinent is Peter Handscomb, who scored 145 off 29 in his six knocks in India in 2023, and was part of the extended squad in Sydney for the last NRMA This week's Insurance Series Test.

Given the way he performed in his debut appearance in that match, Beau Webster looks set to fill the role of Green, who not only top-scored in the second Test in Galle in 2022 but shared the new ball with Mitchell Starc during the subsequent tour. to India.

Starc was the most successful pace bowler for both teams during Australia's previous tour to Sri Lanka (five wickets at 28.60), but his involvement in the current series remains clouded after suffering a rib injury in the final home Tests in Melbourne and Sydney.

With Josh Hazlewood also on the comeback trail after a calf injury and an uncertain starter, Scott Boland could emerge as leader of the pace attack after his player-of-the-match effort at the SCG this week.

However, Boland went wicketless in his only previous appearance in Asia (0-34 from 17 overs against India in Delhi in 2023) and selectors could also consider a quicker with greater 'airspeed', such as Test-capped Jhye Richardson, given the expected slowness . of pitches in Galle.

Regardless of who they choose in the final touring party, it is almost certain that much of the bowling will be done by spinners led by Nathan Lyon, who played a smaller role with the ball during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series due to its nature of the surfaces.

Lyon is arguably Australia's best-performing bowler in Asia of late, with his 45 wickets at 29.91 dating back to Pakistan in 2022, more than double the next best (Cummins' 17 at 29.94).

Lyon, who made his Test debut in Galle in 2011, claimed 11 wickets from the two matches at the venue during Australia's previous tour, bettered only by Sri Lanka's Prabath Jayasuriya, who managed 12 at 2.75pm during his first appearance in the second game of the competition. series.

Australia's second-highest wicket-taker in 2022 was leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson, but the job of turning the ball away from Sri Lanka's right-handed batters is likely to remain with left-armed orthodox Matt Kuhnemann, who will score nine in India at 31.11 in 2023 took wickets. .

Lyon's substitute Todd Murphy, who like Handscomb and Kuhnemann joined the Test squad in Sydney this week, also looks set to resume his Test career after an impressive first series in India two years ago that took 14 wickets at 25.21.

The challenge for the Australian bowlers on the barren Galle pitch will be a top-class Sri Lankan batting that is unlikely to change much from that in the 2022 Warne-Muralidaran Trophy series.

The same top six that plundered 554 in the home side's only innings of the second Test of that campaign was also in brutal form in Sri Lanka's most recent home series, against New Zealand in two matches in Galle.

They resulted in wins by 63 runs, and then an innings and 154 runs, as the Black Caps found no answer to Jayasuriya's spin and the scoring prowess of Kamindu Mendis, Dinesh Chandimal and Kusal Mendis.

Kamindu Mendis looms as his team's key player after enjoying a breakout year in 2024, during which he made 1049 runs at 74.92 and reached the milestone of 1,000 Test runs in the same number of innings as Don Bradman (13), which earned him selection on cricket.com. au's 2024 test team.

Chandimal ended the 2022 campaign against Australia as the highest-run scorer, including an unbeaten 206 in the second Test that underpinned Sri Lanka's innings victory, with opener Dimuth Karunaratne, keeper Kusal Mendis and veteran Angelo Mathews also prominently featured .

With skipper Dhananjaya de Silva and Karunaratne's opening partner, Pathum Nissanka, completing the top six, the home side's batting should be well known to the Australian mind.

That factor, combined with knowledge of the prevailing conditions in Galle during their 2022 visit, means the reigning world Test champions will be quietly confident of a first Test series win in Sri Lanka since Michael Clarke oversaw a 1-0 draw in 2011 victory.