Captain is ready to take battle to Sri Lanka’s spinners

Joe Root has promised England will be “bold” against Sri Lanka and has said he is not afraid to experiment with his side – but 24 hours from the start of the series in Galle, there are many questions over the makeup of the team.

The England management will sit down today after the final net session, but may leave a decision until tomorrow morning, partly because rain is forecast, which means the pitch may not be as dry as expected.

Root and head coach Trevor Bayliss will pick the final team but chief selector Ed Smith will sit in on the meeting in an advisory capacity.

England confirmed yesterday that Jonny Bairstow would miss the Test after failing to recover from an ankle ligament injury he sustained playing football two weeks ago. But his absence throws up another selection quandary for Root and Bayliss. Do they pick Jos Buttler, who kept in Bairstow’s absence in the fourth Test last summer, or hand a debut to Ben Foakes?

The biggest decision will be whether to drop Stuart Broad for the first time in 10 years of Test cricket. England look certain to pick three spinners, leaving room for three seamers, with the choice between Broad and Sam Curran for the final spot behind James Anderson and Ben Stokes.

Root admitted yesterday that England have to be ready to try new approaches after six years of struggles on the sub-continent since beating India under Alastair Cook in 2012. England have won just one Test in 11 matches since then.

Root said: “We have so many different options. We have got to be bold. We have to be adventurous and maybe take the odd risk that we haven’t done before if we are going to give ourselves a good chance of winning. This group of players are not scared of doing that. We are not scared of the surfaces, we are not scared of it spinning.”