Manchester, Aug 21 (AP) Sri Lanka won the toss and opted to bat first Wednesday on a dry, hard pitch and under some clouds at Old Trafford in the first test of the three-match series.

England, which is coming off a 3-0 series win over West Indies, was without captain Ben Stokes in Manchester because of a torn hamstring sustained in a domestic game this month. Ollie Pope was filling in as captain and Dan Lawrence was deputizing as opener for Zak Crawley, who broke a finger in the West Indies series.

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Pope said he would have chosen to bowl first if he had won the toss.

Sri Lanka gave a debut to fast bowler Milan Rathnayake, chosen ahead of Kasun Rajitha and Lahiru Kumara, at the start of its first test series in England since 2016.

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Teams:

England: Dan Lawrence, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (captain), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Matthew Potts, Mark Wood, Shoaib Bashir.

Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne, Nishan Madushka, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Dhananjaya de Silva (captain), Kamindu Mendis, Prabath Jayasuriya, Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando, Milan Rathnayake. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)