Beginning of the battle for the Warne-Muralitharan trophy

Today, Australia will begin their test series against Sri Lanka in Galle. The visitors clinched the trophy of T20I series whereas the hosts won the ODI series. From the beginning of the tour, Australian players have been struggling due to the injuries. 

For the first test, the availability of Travis Head is in doubt and if he is not available, Maxwell is likely to get chance. Australia would definitely prefer to play with two spinners so they would have to choose any one from Starc and Hazlewood. In spin department, Swepson is likely to be the partner of Nathan Lyon.

In 2016, Sri Lanka whitewashed Australia in the test series by 3-0 because of the outstanding performance of Rangana Herath, who took 28 wickets then. This time, Sri Lanka has still brilliant spinners like Lasith Embuldeniya, Parveen Jayawickrama and Jeffrey Vandersay but the Aussies have plenty of confidence because they beat Pakistan in almost similar conditions in their last red ball series.

According to Shane Watson, for Australia, the key to win the series is their top order as the top 5 batters have great skill set to play spin and they are experienced as well.