Sangakkara keeps England guessing

Mendis was missing from the Sri Lanka side that beat India by five wickets at the Beausejour Stadium here on Tuesday to book their place in Thursday’s knockout match.

England have little experience of playing the unorthodox finger and wrist-spinner, although they coped well enough during last year’s Champions Trophy in South Africa.

Sangakkara wasn’t, though, going to make life any easier for England by letting them know Sri Lanka’s side in advance of the toss and, asked about Mendis’s possible inclusion, replied: “We’ll have to have a think about that, how it works with our combination and our batting.

“We would love him to play. He’s a top quality spinner, and England have probably played him once.

“It’s a realistic possibility, but we’ve got other spinners who are pretty good at what they do.

“We’ve got a lot of variation in our bowling attack and will try to exploit that in these conditions - which, I think, are a bit more suited to us.”

Sri Lanka, last year’s losing finalists, face an England side who have confounded their mediocre reputation in Twenty20 cricket by reaching the last four in the Caribbean.

“I think they’re a very good side,” Sangakkara said. “They’ve got a lot more balance than they’ve ever had before, a lot more depth.

“We know what they can do but we will be trying to concentrate on how we can get England reacting to us.”

Sangakkara is well aware of how important a unifying force cricket can be in Sri Lanka and what it would mean to the island nation to lift the trophy.

“The bottom line is that there is no better feeling than playing for your country. It’s paramount we know that as a team and we respect that and I think we do, very, very well. It’s a matter of pride we do well.”

However, the wicketkeeper/batsman was too experienced to be thinking about the final before playing England.

“We’ve got to try to win the semi-final first,” he said. “If we can win tomorrow it will be good; if we can win the next one it will be great.

“But tomorrow (Thursday) is a big hurdle. We’ve done well up to now in patches - we’ve got to do better tomorrow.”