Anderson injury woe

But at least Strauss knows he will not be judged on a few performances. Captain Michael Vaughan spoke of giving the 26-year-old left-hander a decent run in the side and coach Duncan Fletcher has reiterated that view ahead of tomorrow's second day-nighter at the Premadasa Stadium.

"Someone in the top four or five has to bat through the innings," said Fletcher. "That must be the aim." Paul Collingwood-tried to play the anchor role in Dambulla but could find no-one to stay with him, even though England knew from the outset that, on a tricky pitch, 180 might be a challenging total.

Tomorrow, the onus will be on Marcus Trescothick, Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff to make better use of their experience. There is clearly a feeling, though, that Strauss has what it takes to progress quickly after breaking into the team this week at Vikram Solanki's expense.

"For a young lad, he's got a good cricket brain and a professional mind," said Fletcher.

Strauss clinched his promotion by making a half-century during last Saturday's warmup match in Moratua, a contribu t ion that looked more impressive still when compared with Solanki's duck.

"I was impressed with the way he went about that innings on what wasn't an easy pitch early on," added Fletcher.

"He slowly built it up and handled the situation well. You have a look at someone and decide whether the next step is for them to play for England.

"The selection process is all about making sure you don't replace a person just for the sake of replacing them. You have to feel pretty confident that the next guy can do the job. We've given Vikram a good run. He's had five innings in Bangladesh and here."

England (probable): M Trescothick, A Strauss, M Vaughan (capt), P Collingwood, A Flintoff, R Clarke, I Blackwell, C Read (wkt), A Giles, R Johnson, J Kirtley. Sri Lanka (probable): S Jayasuriya, R Kaluwitharana (wkt), M Atapattu (capt), M Jayawardene, K Sangakkara, T Dilshan, U Chandana, C Vaas, D Fernando, M Muralitharan, N Kulasekera.