Sri Lanka’s only tour match before Wednesday’s first Test against England got off to a dreadful start when they were bundled out for just 139 by a ragtag Lions team featuring four teenagers.
To make matters worse, by stumps England Lions had a lead of six, just four wickets down.
One of the teens, the highly-regarded but raw left-arm quick from Leicestershire, Josh Hull, was at the heart of the action, picking up figures of three for 30, pushing his case for a first white-ball international call-up this month. Members of England’s selection panel watched on with interest.
The best figures, though, went to Zaman Akhter, the 25-year-old Gloucestershire quick who is a product of the South Asian Cricket Academy. SACA is an intervention programme designed to help players of south Asian descent discarded by counties find their way back into the professional game. Despite only being set up before the 2022 season, it has now seen more than 10 graduates, including Akhter, sign professional terms with counties.
Akhter, who is a zippy right-armer, took career-best figures of five for 32, including the first three wickets after a steady start for Sri Lanka’s openers, who shared a stand of 36. From there, they lost all 10 wickets for a further 103 runs.
Hull picked up an experienced middle order of Angelo Mathews, Dimuth Karunaratne and captain Dhananjaya de Silva, and there was a wicket each for seamers Kasey Aldridge and Ajeet Singh Dale. Akhter returned to sweep up the tail, meaning off-spinner Farhan Ahmed, the 16-year-old brother of Rehan, England’s youngest men’s international in all three formats, was not required.
Most of Sri Lanka’s batsmen have not played Test cricket in England, and have only been in the country for a matter of days. But on this evidence, the former England batsman Ian Bell, has work to do when he joins up with Sri Lanka as a batting consultant later this week.
The England Under-19 captain Ben McKinney, of Durham, hit 46 from 40 balls to give the Lions’ the perfect start to their response. James Rew fell late in the day, but Hamza Shaikh, Warwickshire’s stylish 18-year-old No 4, reached stumps unbeaten on 21.
The Lions XI has a developmental feel, with Hull the only player withdrawn from the Hundred, which features many of the country’s top young cricketers.
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