Sri Lanka brings fresh challenge but familiar surrounds

While their past four Test campaigns have been fought on seamer-friendly pitches in the UK, New Zealand and at home, Australia's men's outfit embarks on their two-match tour to Sri Lanka with a clear understanding of what awaits.

Through a quirk in the ICC's quaintly random Future Tours Program, not only does Australia visit the Tropical Teardrop for the second time in less than three years (after a solitary Test tour there in the decade prior), both matches are scheduled for familiar turf.

As was the case in mid-2022, the battle for the Warne-Muralidaran Trophy - which Australia holds after the previous contest was drawn 1-1 – will be staged exclusively at Galle International Stadium.

That means a bulk of the players expected to be named in a 16-man touring party later this week will not only boast recent experience in Sri Lanka conditions, those insights relate specifically to the pitches on which they'll be playing in the southern coastal city.

Everything from the impact of the stiff winds that can whip through the exposed stadium off the adjoining Laccadive Sea, to the home-town fondness for grassless surfaces that favour spin from day one will be well known to the tourists when they arrive in less than three weeks.

Among the only discernible differences between the upcoming battle and the Tests of June-July 2022 will be the seasonal change, with January and February among the coolest, driest months in Galle.

The other shift seems likely to revolve around the make-up of both teams' bowling attacks with the top-order batting personnel expected to closely resemble that of two-and-a-half-years earlier.

Even though Australia's 3-1 triumph in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series against India this week ensured their qualification for next June's World Test Championship Final against South Africa at Lord's, the national selection panel is not tipped to make radical changes.

Teenage opener Sam Konstas may be retained after the explosive start to his Test tenure against India, but selectors have also shown a recent preference for deploying Travis Head as Usman Khawaja's opening partner on subcontinent pitches.

That was an enforced move during the 2023 tour to India where David Warner suffered an arm injury in the first Test, but Head's preparedness to take on the new ball when batting conditions are best has been viewed as a blueprint for playing in Asia.

Despite his lean returns against India strike weapon Jasprit Bumrah this home summer, Khawaja remains Australia's best-performed batter on subcontinent tracks across the team's most recent visits to Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka stretching back almost three years.

With 966 runs at 74.31 with three centuries in that time, the 38-year-old's capacity to combat spin and play the moving ball late has evolved substantially since his Sri Lanka struggles in 2016 when he lost his place in the XI after being dismissed twice in the course of a single day at Galle.

Australia's next-best-performed batters in Asia during that window are Marnus Labuschagne (563 runs at 40.21) and Steve Smith (522 at 47.45) with each posting centuries in the second Test at Galle in 2022.

The only other batter to reach triple-figures in Asia during the era of Andrew McDonald (coach) and Pat Cummins (captain) is allrounder Cameron Green who remains unavailable after undergoing back surgery last year.

Cummins has already indicated he is unlikely to take part in the upcoming series with wife Becky expecting the couple's second child in coming weeks, with Smith tipped to resume the captaincy despite overseeing a 0-3 defeat when he led the 2016 team to Sri Lanka.

Head – who is co-vice-captain of the current Test team alongside Smith – boasts a near-identical record in the past three Asia series to his South Australia teammate and Test keeper Alex Carey with 326 runs at 29.64 compared to Carey's 329 at 29.45.

The only other specialist Australia batter to average 25-plus on those subcontinent tracks is Peter Handscomb who scored 145 at 29 in his six knocks in India in 2023, and was part of the expanded squad in Sydney for this week's final NRMA Insurance Series Test.

Given the manner in which he performed in his debut appearance in that match, Beau Webster seems set to fill the role of Green who not only top scored in the second Test at Galle in 2022 but shared the new ball with Mitchell Starc on the subsequent tour to India.

Starc was the most successful pace bowler from either team on Australia's previous tour to Sri Lanka (five wickets at 28.60) but his involvement in the current series remains clouded after carrying a rib injury through the final home Tests at Melbourne and Sydney.

With Josh Hazlewood also on the comeback trail after a calf strain and an uncertain starter, Scott Boland may emerge as leader of the pace attack following his player-of-the-match effort at the SCG this week.

However, Boland went wicketless in his only previous outing in Asia (0-34 from 17 overs against India at Delhi in 2023) and selectors may also consider a quick with greater 'air speed' such as Test-capped Jhye Richardson given the expected sluggishness of pitches in Galle.

Regardless of who they opt for in the final touring party, it is almost certain a bulk of the bowling will be done by spinners led by Nathan Lyon who played a reduced role with the ball during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series due to the nature of the surfaces.

Lyon is demonstrably Australia's best-performed bowler in Asia of late, with his 45 wickets at 29.91 stretching back to Pakistan in 2022, more than double the next-best (Cummins' 17 at 29.94).

Lyon, who made his Test debut at Galle in 2011, claimed 11 wickets from the two matches at the venue on Australia's previous tour which was bettered only by Sri Lanka's Prabath Jayasuriya who snared 12 at 14.75 in his maiden appearance in the second match of the series.

Australia's second-highest wicket-taker in 2022 was leg spinner Mitchell Swepson, but the job of spinning the ball away from Sri Lanka's right-handed batters will likely remain with left-arm orthodox Matt Kuhnemann who took nine wickets at 31.11 in India in 2023.

Lyon's understudy Todd Murphy – who, like Handscomb and Kuhnemann joined the Test squad in Sydney this week – also seems set to resume his Test career after an impressive maiden series in India two years ago that returned 14 wickets at 25.21.

The challenge for Australia's bowlers on the bare Galle pitch will be a Sri Lankan top-order batting that appears unlikely to change markedly from that fielded in the 2022 Warne-Muralidaran Trophy series.

The same top six that plundered 554 in the home team's only innings of the second Test of that campaign was also in brutal form in Sri Lanka's most recent home series, against New Zealand in two matches at Galle.

They resulted in victories by 63 runs, and then an innings and 154 runs, as the Black Caps found no answer to Jayasuriya's spin and the scoring power of Kamindu Mendis, Dinesh Chandimal and Kusal Mendis.

Kamindu Mendis looms as his team's key player having enjoyed a break-out 2024 in which he 1049 runs at 74.92 and reached the 1,000 Test runs milestone in the same number of innings as Don Bradman (13), earning him selection in cricket.com.au's Test Team of 2024.

Chandimal finished the 2022 campaign against Australia as heaviest runs scorer which included an unbeaten 206 in the second Test that underpinned Sri Lanka's innings win, with opener Dimuth Karunaratne, keeper Kusal Mendis and veteran Angelo Mathews also prominent.

Along with skipper Dhananjaya de Silva and Karunaratne's opening partner, Pathum Nissanka who round out the top six, the home team's batting should be well known to Australia's brainstrust.

That factor, combined with the knowledge of prevailing conditions at Galle from their 2022 visit, means the reigning World Test champions will carry quiet confidence for a first Test series win in Sri Lanka since Michael Clarke oversaw a 1-0 triumph in 2011.