Potts returns – and Lawrence reveals opening advice from Cook

Dan Lawrence may only have opened the batting a handful of times in his first-class career but he did spend years sharing a changing room with one of the best proponents of the art in Sir Alastair Cook and says he has exchanged messages with the former England captain before starting his new role as a Test opener.
Lawrence and Cook have very different styles and the 27-year-old, who moved from Essex to Surrey at the end of last season, says that although he has chatted to Cook, he will play his own way.
“I’ve had a couple of messages with Cooky, who I played with for a number of years at Essex,” Lawrence said. “I think the general style of cricket [in this team] suits my game well, opening. I’m not a massively fluent off-side player, I do score through there but I think I will leave well and wait for them to come straight.
“I have a fairly simple game play, I’m just going to go out there and try to express myself and be compact and solid. My style of batting is going to be quite different to Cooky’s. He was fantastic and I learnt a lot from him. I will try to take in what I have watched over the past couple of years and it has been exciting to watch but I will do it my own way.”
England will play an extra seam bowler in place of the injured Ben Stokes, with Matthew Potts coming back into the side for the first time since June last year. The Durham bowler is set to play his seventh Test match and will bat at No 9, making up a four-man seam attack alongside Gus Atkinson, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood.
Shoaib Bashir will be England’s frontline spin bowler, but the stand-in captain Ollie Pope will also be able to call upon some overs from Joe Root and Dan Lawrence.
Lawrence has opened only seven times across five first-class matches in his career and only twice since 2015, but having spent the past 17 Test matches in a row being England’s 12th man, he is relishing the prospect of just playing.
• Steve James: Why England are opening with Dan Lawrence for Sri Lanka Test series
“Opening is not something I necessarily had on my radar, but I’ve been waiting a long time to get an opportunity for England and if that meant batting No 8, 9, 10 or 11, I would have taken it,” he said. “Opening is really exciting, and I can’t wait to get going.
“It’s obviously really exciting every time you do get in an England squad and I’ve been waiting patiently for my opportunity. I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in an environment which has been great fun on and off the pitch, so it hasn’t been all doom and gloom.
“I’ve learnt a lot from watching the boys, about how they approach the game and how they go about things. So I’m just going to try to incorporate a little bit of that into my game and just enjoy it.
“Playing for England has always been my No 1 goal in cricket and obviously seeing the free-flowing nature of how these boys go about it, it does suit my game. There have been times where I wish I’d been out there, but I’ve been really happy for the lads who have been out there and performing really well. I understand that everyone’s been in really good form and it’s been really hard to get in and it’s taken a couple of years, but I finally got my chance.”
Lawrence did begin his career at Essex as an opener in their second team and this season opened for Surrey against Somerset in the County Championship, so it is not a role that is completely alien to him.
“I think one of the biggest strengths of my game is being fairly adaptable to whatever position I need to bat in. Opening, I haven’t done it for a while, but I’m really excited to get out there with [Ben] Duckett on Wednesday and hopefully put on a show.”
The wicketkeeper Jamie Smith will move up one place in the batting order to No 6, with all-rounder Woakes coming in at No 7 and Atkinson at No 8. England decided against selecting Jordan Cox as an extra batsman because they believe they have more than enough depth — Woakes and Potts are both highly capable batsmen who have had good seasons, and with three Tests against Sri Lanka and the tour to Pakistan coming soon afterwards, they want to ensure that their seamers do not have an overly strenuous workload.
Woakes scored an assured half-century in the last Test against West Indies at Edgbaston and Potts is averaging more than 40 in the seven County Championship matches he has played this year. With Pope stepping up to be interim captain while Stokes is out with a torn hamstring, Harry Brook will stand in as his vice-captain.
Despite his injury, Stokes is still with the team at Emirates Old Trafford and was watching on during their training session on Monday afternoon. He is expected to be with the squad throughout the series.
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