Starts: 0430 GMT

Bad news for England supporters is the comfirmation that Hoggard will not take part in this match.

Link: BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | England confirm Hoggard absence

England are also being tight lipped on how the bowling will line up, well there are not that many options - are there?.BBC SPORT | Test Match Special Blog
Well it would not be fair on Broad - he has not played enough cricket, I wonder if England will go for the two spinner option, I think Sri Lanka would like that.

Well Sri Lanka will have thier tails up after thier win in Kandy.

Won't affect their confidence I doubt.

It's IMO time for Harmison and Anderson (Englands premier bowlers) now that Hoggard is out, to stand up and be counted, and also for the England top order to get some runs - and not keep relying on Ian Bell, and lower order batsmen like Prior to do the scoring.
Good luck to both sides.

Please post your pre match and match comments on this thread.

Thank's.

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Ern

Did anyone actually see the KP wicket? I don't have access to SKY, so haven't seen it, but from, what I have read it was incredibly unlucky.

It sounds like exactly the type of wicket where the third Umpire should have been involved?

It was never out in a million years.The ball was held and squashed into the ground before being scooped up into the air and flicked to Sangakkara,a shocking decision but KP should still get fined as his reaction was not what you like to see.

We are in a good position but Sri Lanka have had 2 huge slices of luck in the Vaughan and Pietersen dismissals,hopefully we can get some when we bowl.

You can generally rely on the umpires to make a couple of howlers during the match, but two on the first day, in the same session? It doesn't bode well for the rest of the match.

Pleased to see they've had the sense to replace Anderson and Hoggard with Harmison and Broad, although at least one of possibly both those changes were injury enforced.

I still do not see the logic in continuing with Bopara, he's adding nothing to this side at the moment, particularly after his first ball duck, which was a little unfortunate, but that's something you have to expect at this level of cricket.

They've missed a trick in my opinion of replacing him with Swann which would have given the bowling far more options, with little or no weakening of the batting.

If England can score this number of runs on this pitch then so will Sri Lanka and it will be interesting to see how Englands bowlers do in comparison to Sri Lanka's.

It's certainly a more balanced side in my opinion, but why are they persisting with Bopara when it;s perfectly clear (in my mind) that he's not yet ready for Test Cricket?

It would have been a good day for England but for the incompetent convict clown giving 2 absolutely disgracefully pathetic decisions.I hope the plonker evens it up over the next few days.

Will be interesting to see how Broad bowls, I suppose he can't do much worse that Anderson - although the latter can have purple spells ang get wickets.

In truth a lot depends on Harmison - Malinga struck twice so there must be something there for the quicker bowler.

I think Moores will have to replace Bopara, he just is not in any form at all.

What is frustrating for me is that when Vaughan and Cook get runs, then Bell flops - when will the England batting fire as a team?, because if they don't - they won't win matches.

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Ern

First thing is that I will qualify this post by admitting that I've not seen the tv coverage of either decision, only read and heard the commentary on them.

However, cricket is a sport that is almost unique these days that holds the ethos that the umpire's decision is always final, and very much respected. I hope that it stays that way.

I agree with all of that, "the umpires decision is ALWAYS final", but when you get poor decisions, then cricket lovers like greg will get frustrated - he also went on to say:-
And I agree with that - poor decisions are ok so long as the officials are even handed, well not ok, but understandable.

I don't agree with what Michael Vaughan said in an interview earlier:-
It's IMO the increasing use of technology that is undermining umpires, and if we go any further down that line - then umpires will be obsolete.

Can you see it, a camera umpiring at both ends?.

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Ern

There have always been poor decisions, this argument does crop up a lot, and in the opinions of most commentators I've come across over the span of a series the poor decisions are evened out.

I too think Vaughan was speaking out of turn and from what I heard Pietersen's reaction was non too savoury either.

Of course we are all wanting the ump to get it right, none more so than the umps themselves, and if there is any question needed to be raised by a captain with regards to the method by which a decision was made as in this case then there are surely more appropriate places to do so than the media. Not sure if Vaughan was caught off guard by a jounalist when he made those remarks but still he should have raised the matter privately with the match referee first.

As for cameras and the use of technology, of course it's there to help the officials in whatever way they see fit - I think the jury is still out on whether cameras are effective on determining if catches have gone to hand.

England need to put that behind them and get on with playing cricket - it would be all too easy to bemoan the decisions and rue the luck not going their way.