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On a day that Harbhajan Singh registered his best bowling figures outside India, 7 for 120, he was a subdued man. His early burst – at one point his figures read 4 for 10 – had put India in a commanding position, but a combination of brilliance from Jacques Kallis and some uninspiring stuff from India in the field took South Africa from 130 for 6 to 341. Harbhajan had the look of a man who knew that India’s best chance of winning a series in South Africa had now turned into a situation from where they will need to play really well to even come out with a 1-1 result.”Happy I got wickets, but not happy that Kallis scored a hundred,” Harbhajan said. “At one stage we were in a very good position, but from there onwards they batted well but we could still have created more chances by bowling well. We didn’t bowl as well as we should have.”Harbhajan rued the lack of support from the seamers. “I don’t know what the plan was,” he said. “I think we could have created more chances throughout the day with our fast bowling. We didn’t bowl the right lengths. That’s what I felt. I am not being critical, just giving my honest opinion. We could have created more chances with our seamers. If you see, their [South Africa’s] seamers have taken most of their wickets. There was still a lot of bounce and carry in the wicket, but I think we didn’t bowl as well as we could have.”Harbhajan – in the first half of his effort – used the rough outside the right-hand batsman’s off stump pretty well. The patch was helpful, but it was wide outside off, so it took some effort to exploit it. “There is rough, and I think I have hit a lot of balls in the rough,” Harbhajan said. “When you are new as a batsman, it is difficult to play from there, but once you are in then you get the idea of how much it is bouncing and spinning. Otherwise from the middle, nothing much is happening for the spinner, but there is definitely rough and if any offspinner bowls there, he will get a lot of spin and bounce.”Harbhajan, though, didn’t have any answers for Kallis’ innings. He said he hasn’t seen many batsmen respond so well to a tough situation, connecting with the reverse-sweep so often and so cleanly. He called Kallis the best player in the world after Sachin Tendulkar. However, the way Kallis batted gave him and India hope.”The wicket is still very good,” he said “If you get in, there are a lot of runs. It has become better to bat on. New ball will be crucial. We have all seen how well Dale Steyn has bowled. We will have to bat well up front, then let’s see how to go about it.”Going into the last day of what has been a highly competitive series, India need 340 runs with all their wickets in hand. “Our approach – to be honest – will be to see off the first hour,” Harbhajan said. “If we play the new ball well…of course we need some fireworks from Virender Sehwag, if he gets going, anything is chaseable. This is a fast ground where a lot of runs can be scored. I hope Viru clicks tomorrow and gives us a good start. Hundred for no loss will be a good start, I hope we get that. New ball will be crucial.”

Ryan McLaren has been named in South Africa’s 15-man squad to face India in the first Test starting on December 16 in Centurion. The remainder of the squad is the same as the one that did duty in the two-Test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates last month.The selectors were originally going to announce a 12-man squad for all three Tests against India, so players who were not picked could concentrate on the round of SuperSport Series matches that start on the same day as the first Test, but changed their minds.”We want to keep the squad together that played against Pakistan,” Andrew Hudson, convenor of selectors, said. “McLaren has impressed in both formats of the domestic game played so far this season and has also come back into our thinking.”McLaren is the fifth highest wicket-taker in the SuperSport Series, with 14 wickets at an average of 20.57. He made his Test debut against England in January this year but has not played at that level since then. His inclusion will put pressure on Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Wayne Parnell, who are also competing for the role of the fourth seamer.Although South Africa are likely to field only one spinner, in keeping with their traditional game-plan at home, they have included both Johan Botha and Paul Harris in the squad. Similarly, there was thought to be room for only one of Ashwell Prince or JP Duminy in the top six, but both are in the squad, presumably as cover for Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla, who are both injured.Smith fractured the ring finger on his left hand while Amla suffered a contusion to his left forearm while fielding. Both injuries were sustained on the tour to the UAE but both men are expected to be fit for the first Test. Hudson said their response to treatment had been “very positive”.South Africa Test squad: Graeme Smith (capt), Hashim Amla, Johan Botha, Mark Boucher (wk), AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Paul Harris, Jacques Kallis, Ryan McLaren, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell, Alviro Petersen, Ashwell Prince, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe

Peter Chingoka, Zimbabwe Cricket’s long-standing and controversial chairman, has been appointed by the ICC as one of its Pakistan Task Team, originally constituted to assist with the country’s return to staging home Tests and now expanded to “help the Pakistan Cricket Board to carry out any reforms which may be deemed necessary to restore confidence in the administration of the game in Pakistan”.His appointment at a time his own position at the helm of Cricket Zimbabwe is under increasing pressure comes despite his own board having been the subject of a major ICC investigation a few years ago. In 2008 an independent audit commissioned by the ICC highlighted “serious financial irregularities” within the board of which Chingoka was head.While Zimbabwe are taking major strides on their own rehabilitation into the international community, much of the credit for that is given to Ozias Bvute, official the board’s chief executive but increasingly the face of the board.”He is not exactly a shining example of how to run an administration,” said one former colleague and Zimbabwe board member. “Given all that’s happened on his watch it would be hard to find someone less likely to advise another board on how best to run their affairs.”Chingoka remains banned from entering the European Community because of what the authorities claim to be his links to the Mugabe regime, and he was recently identified by the new British government as being the major obstacle to a return of cricketing relations with Zimbabwe.

Match Facts

Thursday, October 14, Mirpur
Start time 09:00 local (03:00 GMT)Shahriar Nafees has been a revelation at the top of the order in his first ODI series after more than two years•AFP

The Big Picture

History beckons Bangadesh’s cricketers, who on Thursday could record their first series win against top-flight opposition. A team that has won only 14 of 155 ODIs against the current Test-playing nations, and only once before won two consecutive matches against such opposition (against a second-string West Indies side led by Floyd Reifer), can wrap up the series with a win in the fourth ODI.There seem to be few problems for Bangladesh going into the game. Shahriar Nafees has been a revelation at the top of the order, ensuring that even Tamim Iqbal has not been missed. Shakib al Hasan has contributed with both bat and ball and the spinners have stifled New Zealand on the slow Mirpur surface.While Duckworth-Lewis had a role to play in the first win, what is heartening from Bangladesh’s view is that the victory on Monday was a team performance, the reliance on Shakib much less than usual.This series was supposed to be a continuation of New Zealand’s World Cup build-up on the sub-continent. After the huge victory against India in the first match of the Sri Lanka tri-series, they have lost four games, and two have been washed out. Anything but ideal preparation so far.They failed to bat out fifty overs in the previous match, leaving Ross Taylor stranded. The lower middle order has looked wobbly, and the form of allrounder Grant Elliott, at the key No. 5 position, is a worry. Given that he hasn’t bowled in ODIs this year, the lack of runs is hurting even more.

Form guide

(most recent, completed matches)
Bangladesh: WWLWL
New Zealand: LLLLW

Watch out for…

Shahriar Nafees, back from the ICL and playing his first ODI series in more than two years, has provided good starts in both games, along with Imrul Kayes. He was severe on the New Zealand seamers in the third ODI, getting to his half-century at more than a run-a-ball. Bangladesh appear a different team when they get such starts.Ross Taylor has looked the best New Zealand batsman so far, and is deservedly their top-scorer in the series. You know he is in good touch when he regularly slog-sweeps those sixes over midwicket, which he did four times in the previous game. His team will require more of them if they are to remain alive in this series.

Team news

Bangladesh should stick to the same side that won a couple of days ago.Bangladesh (probable): 1 Imrul Kayes, 2 Shahriar Nafees, 3 Junaid Siddique, 4 Raqibul Hasan, 5 Shakib Al Hasan (capt), 6 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 7 Mahmudullah, 8 Abdur Razzak, 9 Rubel Hossain, 10 Shafiul Islam, 11 Suhrawadi ShuvoShannan Stewart took a blow to the head while attempting a catch off Imrul Kayes in the first over of Bangladesh’s chase. Kane Williamson could come in for him. BJ Watling kept wickets instead of Brendon McCullum in the previous match, as McCullum was said to be suffering from sore knees. Will Watling continue to keep?New Zealand (probable): 1 Jesse Ryder, 2 Brendon McCullum (wk), 3 BJ Watling, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Grant Elliott, 6 Kane Williamson/Shannan Stewart, 7 Daniel Vettori (capt), 8 Nathan McCullum, 9 Kyle Mills, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Andy McKay

Stats and trivia

• The stand of 127 between Nafees and Kayes in the previous match is Bangladesh’s best for the first wicket against the current Test-playing nations, and their third-highest overall.
• New Zealand’s total of 173 in the third ODI is their lowest against Bangladesh when batting first.

Quotes

“We always knew it was going to be a tough test coming over here and playing without having any practice matches, coming up against a Bangladesh team that’s good in their own conditions.”
“We are not thinking of anything other than winning the series after the way we played in the first two games.”

Grant Flower, the 39-year-old batsman, has made a shock international return more than six years after he last played for Zimbabwe, being named in the squads for the tour of South Africa next month.In August, Flower had returned to Zimbabwe after six seasons with Essex, to be the batting coach of the national team and the player-coach of the Mashonaland Eagles franchise.He was one of Zimbabwe’s leading players during his 12-year international career, in which he has so far played 67 Tests (3457 runs at 29.54) and 219 ODIs (6536 runs at 33.69). In 2004, he became one of the key players to leave in an exodus following Heath Streak’s removal from the captaincy.”It (international cricket) is a different pressure,” Flower told the . “I just had a good season with Essex, playing some of my best one-day cricket with them, but international cricket is a step up.”Essex were relegated to the second division of the County Championship, but Flower’s 527 runs at 65.87 were pivotal to the county reaching the semi-final of the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition.He admitted that the dual role of player and batting coach could prove to be tricky. “There can be a conflict of interests with my role as the batting coach if I can’t turn things around as a player,” Flower said. “It can be awkward if I don’t. If it works, however, it can come out in positive fashion.”Zimbabwe’s three ODIs and two Twenty20s against South Africa are their only confirmed international assignments before the World Cup starts in February next year.Flower is the latest of several high-profile players who have become part of Zimbabwe cricket this season. Fast bowlers Allan Donald and Jason Gillespie have taken domestic coaching assignments, and former New Zealand allrounder Chris Harris has been put in charge of the national Under-19 team.Twenty20 squad Elton Chigumbura(capt), Hamilton Masakadza , Chamu Chibhabha, Tatenda Taibu (wk), Shingirai Masakadza, Ian Nicolson, Prosper Utseya, Graeme Cremer, Charles Coventry, Ed Rainsford, Chris Mpofu, Keith Dabengwa, Grant Flower, Brendan Taylor.ODI Squad: Elton Chigumbura (capt), Hamilton Masakadza , Chamu Chibhabha, Tatenda Taibu (wk), Shingirai Masakadza, Ian Nicolson, Prosper Utseya, Graeme Cremer, Ed Rainsford, Chris Mpofu, Keith Dabengwa, Grant Flower, Sean Williams, Craig Ervine, Brendan Taylor.

Steven Finn believes that his first taste of defeat as an England Test cricketer will help to make him a better player in the long run, as he prepares to return to his home ground at Lord’s for the series decider against Pakistan on Thursday. However, with the hype surrounding this winter’s Ashes being cranked up an extra notch, he refused to be drawn into a war of words with Australia’s opening batsman, Shane Watson, who earlier this week singled him out as the potential weak link in England’s attack.Finn, whose Test career coincided with the start of England’s run of six victories in a row against Bangladesh at Chittagong in March, admitted he was “gutted” to suffer his first loss in England colours, as Pakistan overcame some familiar jitters on the fourth day to win a thrilling contest by four wickets. He claimed just one wicket in 23 overs in the match, his least productive outing of the year, but insisted he would treat the experience as another step in his ongoing development at the top level.”I hate losing games of cricket,” said Finn. “Every game that I play in, whether it’s for my club side, Middlesex or England, every game you lose leads to a period of reflection. There were areas where I didn’t bowl as well as I could have done and that might have contributed towards us losing the game. That’s something I’m very aware of, and in the grand scheme of things you learn a lot from that having lost that Test.”Whereas Finn’s 6’7″ frame had enabled him to harvest wickets in his early outings of the summer -not least on his last trip to Lord’s in May when he claimed nine in the match against Bangladesh, including second-innings figures of 5 for 87 – Finn found the going rather harder on a true Oval surface last week, when he and his team-mates were thwarted by the experienced Mohammad Yousuf and the rapidly improving Azhar Ali, whose 69-run stand for the fifth wicket proved to be the decisive partnership of the game.”We’ve identified the areas where we could do better, and hope to do better in this next game,” Finn said. “At times felt I leaked too many four-balls, I’d bowl five decent balls then one four-ball, which was very frustrating and I didn’t mean to do. During that middle period, when Yousuf and Azhar Ali were going well, we could have done with me drying it up a little bit, but that’s cricket, you learn every time you step out on the pitch. It’s not a mindset thing or a technical thing. I’m just going to focus more on putting the ball in the right areas.”The phrase “right areas” is perhaps the most lampooned in international cricket, but as far as Finn is concerned, it is a mantra that he expects to serve him well as he concentrates on the line and length that his role model and coach at Middlesex, Angus Fraser, made his watchword during his own international career in the 1990s.”I think I’ve got what it takes to bowl under pressure,” he said. “I’ve got a repeatable action and I know I know what I’m doing with the ball and where to bowl it. Having the people around me that I have, Fraser and David Saker [England’s bowling coach], and people who’ve played a lot of international cricket, I have people to turn to in the tough times, because that is the nature of international cricket, people go through hard periods. But people come out the other side of tough periods as well, as Alastair Cook showed with his hundred this week.”After a relatively gentle introduction to Test cricket against two brittle batting line-ups in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the presence of Yousuf for last week’s third Test represented a significant step-up in class for Finn. However, he reiterated his belief that – with or without a player of such stature in the opposition ranks – the four-man attack that had swept all before it this summer was still good enough to secure a decisive victory at Lord’s this week.”Obviously Yousuf is a good player, you can’t take anything away from that, but we’ve bowled Pakistan out for 72 and 80 so far, so there’s a batting collapse waiting to happen,” he said. “They’ve had two innings where they’ve played well and put partnerships together, but at no stage have they got away from us. Their top score is just over 300, so we’re not at all disappointed by that. We feel as though we are doing the right thing as bowlers, and them having Mohammad Yousuf in the team doesn’t make them a different team at all.”Having sat out the one-dayers against Australia last month to undergo a strength and conditioning course, Finn feels he is a fitter and more effective bowler now than he was at the start of the summer, with his pace topping 90mph at times during the Oval Test. However, he will be running up against the Aussies soon enough, and though he remains modest about his prospect of making the cut for the Ashes, it’s already clear from Watson’s pre-emptive strike that they expect him both to make the tour, and to be a significant factor.Watson, who has been shortlisted as one of the ICC’s World Players of the Year after returning to the Australian team as an opener during last summer’s Ashes campaign in England, took it upon himself to fill the shoes of Glenn McGrath in targeting England’s players. “We can make the most of Finn’s inexperience,” he said. “We want to test his durability as a bowler. It will be so foreign for him – he doesn’t know what to expect in Australia.”Finn, however, refused to rise to the bait. “It’s up to me first to be put on that plane to go to the Ashes, and I have to bowl well to warrant my place,” he said. “There’s competition for places, and there are a lot of good fast bowlers in the English set-up. But as far as what Shane Watson has said, I’m not concerning myself at all about it. If people want to concern themselves with me, and waste their mental energy on me, that’s their business. But it doesn’t faze me whatsoever. All I do is turn around at the end of my mark and go through my processes, whether I’m playing for club or country.”

The second day at Trent Bridge was James Anderson’s 28th birthday, and it began for him in a somewhat lugubrious fashion. Before the start of play he was serenaded by his tuneless team-mates and presented with a cupcake by two of the press photographers, a pair of gestures that left him more bemused than touched. His mood had not improved by the time Mohammad Asif pinned him lbw for a first-ball duck – his second in four home Tests and, after a memorable run of 54 duckless innings from his debut in 2003, his third blob in the space of 11 months.By the end of another breathless chapter of a compelling contest, however, Anderson’s mood had been restored to a level more befitting a birthday boy. “The day didn’t start out great, but a few wickets at the end made up for it, and we finished on a happy note,” he said with his habitual solemnity. “Yesterday it swung and the pitch did help, and we knew if we were patient enough we’d get some nicks. So we tried to be as patient as possible, keep the runs down, and it paid off for us.”Anderson’s deadpan delivery when addressing the media is unrecognisable from the jive-talking wisecracking he produces with the ball. With wicked late movement from a taxing full length, his mercurial brand of banana-ey seam and swing presented a challenge every bit as eyecatching as that of Asif and Mohammad Aamer, two players whose merits have earned them comparisons with some of the greatest players in the game – Aamer, for his part, enhanced his status as the new Wasim Akram with an innings of 25 that put his top-order to shame, while Asif is now one wicket shy of his century, and assuming England have to bat again, he will surely emulate the great Waqar Younis by reaching that milestone in his 20th Test.Alas, Anderson, with the best will in the world, can never hope to attract such lofty adulation. “In the right conditions there’s no better bowler in world cricket,” said Andrew Strauss on the eve of the game – a comment that sounded, at the time, like condemnation with less-than-fulsome praise. Too many lackadaisical performances have drifted by in the course of his seven-year career for his excellence ever to be accepted as standard. But that doesn’t mean he’s not a sight to behold on those days, such as today, when everything clicks.Pakistan’s captain, Salman Butt, was certainly impressed. He and his team-mates had, for the most part, negotiated Australia’s frontline seamers with minimum fuss in their preceding two Tests, only to crumble to the second-string offerings of Shane Watson and Marcus North. But right from the start of Anderson’s devastating 20-over spell, he and his team-mates knew that the challenge had been ramped up several notches. In these conditions, he said, there was no contest between the Ashes attacks.”Anderson was a different bowler,” said Butt, the first of his five victims. “He stood out for England today. Mohammad Asif can bowl like Glenn McGrath, but not many bowlers in the world bowl both [in- and out-] swing with that much control, and at the same pace. I’ve seen at first hand that he was bowling with such control and I think it was an outstanding bowling performance.”Anderson, inevitably, had a far more modest appraisal. “I didn’t think it swung as much as yesterday, which I think helped to get the edge more today, and all of us made best use of the conditions,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure for our spots, with a big squad of players, so we’ve just got to keep putting in good performances.”Attaining that consistency, of course, has been the problem all throughout Anderson’s career. This was his ninth five-wicket haul in 49 Tests, a return that, in isolation, keeps him in touch with some significant speedsters of the past – the mighty Waqar, for instance, managed 22 in 87. But Waqar rarely went missing for days on end, as Anderson did around the time of his 27th birthday last summer, when he followed up an Ashes five-for at Edgbaston with blank returns in the series finales at Headingley and The Oval.More recently, he’s been down in the dumps for different reasons. His omission from the triumphant World Twenty20 campaign led to a rare burst of indignation, as he vented his fury at the slight while openly questioning his value as a key member of the team. His performances in the recent one-dayers were indicative of that morose mindset, as he was clattered for an average 70 runs a match in four out of five games against Australia and Bangladesh – while inevitably chipping in with a brilliant 3 for 22 in between whiles.That particular performance took place at his home ground of Old Trafford, and Trent Bridge is another venue where his demeanour visibly relaxes. The last time England played a Test here was against New Zealand in 2008, when Anderson proved unplayable in a career-best 7 for 43.”Certain grounds do seem to swing every time, and Trent Bridge has been good to me the last couple of times I’ve been here,” he admitted. “I felt like I’ve been bowling pretty well, but just not getting the wickets that you think you deserve. But hopefully now towards the end of the season, I can give it a big push in this series and keep taking some.”Anderson’s confidence will remain an inevitable talking point with England’s Ashes campaign looming large, especially because he cannot expect the sort of assistance Down Under that was on offer in this game. But with Steven Finn’s immaculate discipline and high-kicking bounce causing another swathe of problems to an opposition unused to such an awkward line of attack, his presence as a point of difference could yet be crucial. Especially on those days when he simply gets it right.

ScorecardAn extraordinary return of 3 for 5 by Isle of Wight-born spinner Danny Briggs eased Hampshire to an emphatic 45-run Friends Provident t20 win over Kent in Canterbury. The 19-year-old slow-left arm spinner ran through the Kent middle order in the space of four overs to secure Hampshire’s sixth win in 11 in the South Group, while inflicting an eighth defeat on the Spitfires, who now look unlikely to qualify for the knockout stages.Batting first in what transpired to be a low-scoring clash on a spin-friendly pitch, Hampshire limped along at seven an over – a sedate pace for t20 – especially against an injury-ravaged Kent attack.Sean Ervine comfortably top-scored for the visitors, clattering 44 from 26 with six fours before he top-edged a catch to the keeper off Malinga Bandara.Otherwise none of the Royals top order moved to 20 as Sri Lankan legspinner Bandara took 3 for 14 and occasional offspinner Martin van Jaarsveld 3 for 25, a haul that included the experienced scalps of Nic Pothas (13) and Dominic Cork for a first-ball duck.Kent lost Joe Denly early in the reply when a crisp pull-shot against Chris Wood, which the right-hander believed might sail for six, simply picked out Jimmy Adams at deep square leg.Spitfires skipper Rob Key (22) and van Jaarsveld coaxed the home score through to 28 before Key, in looking to pull a short one from Wood through the leg side, bottom edged the ball onto his foot only to see it trickle back onto the stumps and remove one bail.Without the experienced duo of Darren Stevens and James Tredwell, both absent on England Lions duty, Kent’s rookie middle order struggled to hit boundaries as Hampshire skipper Cork took pace off the ball through Briggs.The teenage slow left-armer, who said afterwards he “didn’t bowl one bad ball”, had left-hander Alex Blake caught at backward square-leg off a miscued paddle and Matt Coles (one) snaffled at deep cover.Kent’s last hope rested on the shoulders of former Pakistan allrounder Azhar Mahmood, who reached 16 from 17 balls, but when he slogged across the line to be bowled, Kent’s hopes of progressing beyond the knockout stages went with him.Talking after securing the win with 21-balls to spare, Briggs said: “It came out well. I just kept to my plans and have got more confident as the tournament has gone on.”

Australia are sweating on the fitness of Ben Hilfenhaus ahead of the second Test in Leeds, after the fast bowler hurt his left shoulder diving to save a boundary on the fourth day at Lord’s. Hilfenhaus was in obvious pain after the front-on lunge, although he remained on the field and sent down the next over to see how the problem affected his bowling.However, straight after that over Hilfenhaus left the field to receive treatment, and while he returned to the action, he didn’t bowl again in the innings. The captain Ricky Ponting said Hilfenhaus could have bowled again later in the day if required, but the real test will be how he recovers over the next couple of days.”You won’t stop him bowling, it doesn’t matter what he does,” Ponting said. “He would have been fine. He is a bit sore in his shoulder. They will probably have a look at it tomorrow once it has cooled down and will know a bit more about it then. We don’t really know the extent of it today and we just keep our fingers crossed and hope it’s not too bad.”Hilfenhaus was without doubt the best of Australia’s three fast men, as he used the cloudy conditions to curl the ball sharply back in to the left-handers and away from the right-handers. He finished with match figures of 3 for 74, more wickets than either Doug Bollinger or Mitchell Johnson managed for the game.Johnson bowled well in the first innings but started to lose his radar in the second, often bowling too straight, and he struggled to 0 for 74 from 18 overs. Bollinger’s battle with English conditions continued – he was disappointing in his only season of county cricket in 2007 – as he battled to find any swing and collected two wickets, both in the first innings.”I really think it was a fact of both those guys really trying too hard, knowing the conditions offered quite a bit for the faster bowlers,” Ponting said. “I think they just tried to exploit a bit too much from the wicket rather than just being patient and hitting the areas long enough and waiting for the wicket to do something for them.”The only other fast man in the squad is the two-metre-tall Peter George, from South Australia, who will be keeping a close eye on Hilfenhaus in the next few days. George played in the tour match in Derby but didn’t pick up a wicket.

Galle will host the first Test between Sri Lanka and India in July, while the next two matches will be held in Colombo, at the SSC and the P Sara Oval. India will return home following the completion of the Asia Cup but will go back to Sri Lanka on July 9 for the Test series, followed by a triangular tournament also involving New Zealand.The third Test was originally scheduled for Dambulla but Sri Lanka Cricket secretary Nishantha Ranatunga said the venues had to be switched because the floodlights at the SSC would not be ready in time for the one-day competition. Instead Dambulla will now host the tri-series from August 10 to 29 while SSC will stage a Test.The first Test is between July 18 and 22 at Galle. The second and third are between July 26 and 30, and August 3 and 7 respectively. The tri-series begins on August 10 and each team will play the other twice before the top two play the final. There will be a reserve day for each match of the tri-series including the final.