Sri Lanka: The senior players of the Sri Lankan cricket team who had refused to travel to Pakistan earlier this year for the ODI and the T20I series are now ready to travel to the country for the test series.
Due to the refusal of the seniors, Sri Lanka had to send a young, inexperienced side to Pakistan which ended up whitewashing the hosts 3-0 in the T20I series, giving the home fans a major shock.
Since the tour went on smoothly without any security glitches, the senior Sri Lankan players now seem to be convinced about the security situation in Pakistan.
If the sources are to be believed, all the senior players have made themselves available for the 2-match test series scheduled to take place in December.
According to the sources, one of the reasons why the seniors don’t want to keep themselves away from the scheduled tour of Pakistan is because they know the tour will go ahead anyway, with or without them.
If they refuse, the selectors will pick youngsters who might present a strong case for themselves to be the regular members of the side with their performances as they did in the T20I series and that will leave the seniors in an “isolated” situation.
Some of the Sri Lankan players who had withdrawn themselves from the ODI and the T20I series against Pakistan were Kusal Mendis, Kusal Perera, Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews. All of them are the key members of the Sri Lankan test side as well.
Rawalpindi and Karachi are the likely venues where the games of the Pakistan vs Sri Lanka test series will be held. The Sri Lankan team will have to stay in Pakistan for about 15 days or so for the series.
This is the first time after the infamous terrorist attack of 2009 that a team will play test cricket in Pakistan.
