Daniel Wales and Charles Hague-Jones report one what comes next for English cricket following a divisive summer, ahead of the test series with Sri Lanka.
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00:00It's been a divisive summer for English cricket. The retirement of Jimmy Anderson, Ben Stokes
00:06been injured in the hundred and just one test series prior to the current one against Sri
00:11Lanka have all led to plenty of discussion over which direction the ECB is taking.
00:19My colleague Charles Haig-Jones is currently in Manchester for the first test against Sri
00:23Lanka. What's the atmosphere like there Charles and what are your thoughts on England's summer
00:28so far?
00:29Thanks Dan. Yeah, I'm here at Old Trafford for day one of the Rothesay test series with
00:36Sri Lanka. There's around 14,500 in attendance which is very almost a sellout on day one.
00:43It's expected to have shorter crowds for Wednesday. It's sort of the back end of a summer. England
00:48have had sort of a strange summer really. Obviously the World Cup didn't go their way.
00:53The one before that he had Moeen Ali saying it's time to start bringing through new names
00:58and younger talents. Obviously we've seen the icon that is James Anderson retire this
01:03summer as well. Here it is home ground for Lancashire cricket. The sort of test series
01:08is you know around him and really celebrating his incredible chess career and his incredible
01:15England career and cricket career as well. Obviously no Ben Stokes injured during the
01:20100 in quite controversial fashion. Obviously the 100 has sort of taken the spotlight a
01:24bit this summer. You know it's going to do that when there's no Ashes series. But you
01:29know they hosted West Indies and that was sort of a bit of an underwhelming one. Sri
01:34Lanka now you really have to hope that this series can provide a bit more than that. And
01:40you know really the state of test cricket is certainly debatable at this stage. Obviously
01:45young players you know come through. Ollie Pope takes this side into a series where you
01:50do hope England get the job done and they're not really here for long. Hopefully the weather
01:54can hold off. Matthew Potts obviously been brought through from Durham. He's played a
01:59lot of counter cricket there. He made his test debut in 2022. So that's good to see
02:04him come through. But England need to really start to take up that route of you know yes
02:10have your experience but also bring in your new players because you know that the next
02:15home Ashes series is going to be here sooner rather than later. Obviously they go to Australia
02:20and you know whatever happens there happens. But it's so important that England can defend.
02:25Obviously we have the rain in the last Ashes series that sort of delayed it. But England
02:30should not have been in the position they were anyway. But they need to make sure they
02:34win that home Ashes series and by bringing through players and new names that is certainly
02:39the right start. So yeah it's going to be an interesting one. And they need to take
02:45that sort of route of bringing these players through because they don't just need to focus
02:49on winning the test series, the Ashes series. They need to make sure they win it with flying
02:55colours. That has got to be the goal for this England group.