mvaughan

There will be plenty of people very keen on keeping Alastair Cook on their side after his heroics in Australia. You can't really blame them and it's pretty incredible to think that, just over a year ago, he was probably just one failure away from being dropped. The Essex man is now seen as one of the rocks in this superb England side.

After the way he batted in that England Lions Match, Eoin Morgan will be carrying some punters' money too. But my own hard-earned will be on Andrew Strauss. He'll be desperate to get this new phase of his career in which he's solely the Test captain off to the best possible start. Strauss is in pretty decent nick too, having already scored two centuries for Middlesex this season, one of which was against Sri Lanka in a warm-up match. That means he's not only had a good look at their bowling line-up, he's also taken them apart! He's the sort of captain who likes to lead by example at the top of the innings and, at 4.8, looks the outstanding choice in this market.

As for Sri Lanka, you could make a case for any of Tillekaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara or Mahela Jayawardene. They're the class acts in this batting line-up and the ones who have previous experience of playing in conditions where the ball will swing. My preference goes for the latter of the three at 4.9. Dilshan will have the pressure of the captaincy weighing him down a bit given he's just taken up the role, not to mention the fact he'll have to face a new ball that may be moving around early on. Sangakkara bats at three so he might have to face a swinging ball too and I've seen him struggle in the past when that's been the case. I've said already that batting might get easier as the match progresses so because of his class and the fact he'll come in at four, I'm siding with Jayawardene.

Recommended Bets:
Back Andrew Strauss to be first innings top England batsman at 4.8
Back Mahela Jayawardene to be first innings top Sri Lankan batsman at 4.9

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