Sri Lanka will face hosts New Zealand in the Boxing Day Test which will be played at Hagley Oval, Christchurch on Friday. New Zealand will host a Boxing Day Test after 11 years. Hagley Oval will also become the eight Test venue in New Zealand.
It will be a change of pastures and well as formats for both teams. New Zealand are coming off United Arab Emirates (UAE) after a thrilling 3-2 win in the One-Day Internationals (ODI) over Pakistan while Sri Lanka enjoyed had a special time at home as they drubbed England easily by a big margin of 5-2. The challenge will again start for the Lankans as they will be playing in the alien conditions.
New Zealand who had to rely on spinning options to get wickets in UAE will go back to seamers in the Christchurch Test as the track there is likely to favour the fast-bowlers. It will be a total change of strategy. Trent Boult and Tim Southee will come back to the fold after they returned early from UAE to extend preparations for the Test matches. Corey Anderson will remain out of the first Test due to the injury he suffered in UAE which will cut out one seaming option for Brendon McCullum. But looking at the conditions, the Kiwi skipper is quite likely to draft in a bundle of fast bowling options in addition to Boult and Southee. Doug Bracewell and Neil Wagner are most likely to be presented with a game at Christchurch.
Sri Lanka have a very decent opportunity in hand to polish their overseas reputation in the first Test. Coming from a big ODI win against England in their own soil, the momentum will be on their side but they need to clock the conditions well to make full use of it. It will also be interesting to witness how Sri Lankan seamers fare in these conditions and how effective they will be against the home team. Dushmantha Chameera was the most successful seamer for Sri Lanka in the tour match they played against New Zealand Chairman XI as he picked up three wickets. While Shaminda Eranga also was decent as he returned with two wickets. Another uncapped off-spinner also impressed with figures of three for 13 in the tour match. Sri Lanka will miss the services of Rangana Herath who was ruled out of the first Test due to a hamstring tear.
According to a report in radionz.co.nz, all the tickets of the first day’s play has been sold out and a crowd of almost 8000 is expected to be present for the Boxing Day Test.
Squads:
New Zealand: Tom Latham, Hamish Rutherford, Kane Williamson, BJ Watling (wk), Jimmy Neesham, Tim Southee, Mark Craig, Trent Boult, Neil Wagner, Doug Bracewell Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum (c), Dean Brownlie.
(Varun Arorais a reporter with CricketCountry. He started as a medium-fast bowler, converted to an opening batsman but finally settled with his passion of writing about the game. His Twitter handle is @varunjgd)
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
Written by 
