Sri Lanka's Lakmal Out of England Finale

Manchester: Sri Lanka's Suranga Lakmal will miss the fifth and final one-day international against England at Old Trafford on Saturday.

The seamer suffered a side strain bowling his first over in Sri Lanka's 10-wicket defeat by England at Trent Bridge on Wednesday, a result that left the series all square at 2-2 heading into this weekend's decider.

"He is out for three or four weeks," Sri Lanka captain Tillakaratne Dilshan told reporters at Old Trafford on Friday. "The doctors advised him after his scan today."

Lakmal's injury means he will also miss the final matches of Sri Lanka's tour, the tri-series one-day internationals against Ireland and Scotland, in Edinburgh next week.

Fellow seamer Dammika Prasad is expected to take Lakmal's place, especially as all-rounder Angelo Mathews has yet to regain full bowling fitness following a hamstring problem.

"It will be a seamer," Dilshan said of Mathews's replacement. "Angelo is still not 100 percent fit to bowl. We have three spinners already."

A see-saw series has yet to witness a close match, something Dilshan explained by saying: "We've had two flat wickets - we won easily; then two seaming wickets - they won easily."

Dilshan, returning to the side after a broken thumb suffered making a superb 193 in the drawn second Test at Lord's, has managed just 13 runs in four innings this series.

And at Trent Bridge the opener was out for a duck, one of a trio of top-order wickets for swing bowler James Anderson whose return of three for 24 in eight overs laid the platform for England's crushing victory.

"Anderson is the key man for their bowling attack," Dilshan said. "He took early wickets that pushed us back. If we can play him, it might be we have a good chance to put some runs on the board.

"We've played very good one-day cricket for the last three or four years and been runners-up in the last two World Cups...We want to win the series."

And Dilshan himself would be delighted if he could play a significant innings following his poor returns in the previous four matches.

Stuart Broad broke a four-match drought with two scalps at Trent Bridge, but they were hardly prestigious wickets - Suraj Randiv gloving down the leg side and Jeevan Mendis top-edging an uppercut - and he is still struggling back to his best. He's been publicly backed by his captain, but Tim Bresnan's return from injury and England's current surfeit of talented quicks means this may well be his last chance to nail down his place ahead of India's arrival.

"I think it's important we've stayed unchanged [in the series], it shows we've got faith in our cricketers," said Alastair Cook after England's series-levelling win at Trent Bridge, but there were reports late on Friday that Stuart Broad wouldn't play due to a bruised heel. That could mean a call-up for Samit Patel and the Old Trafford wicket has been noticeably favourable to the spinners in recent domestic Twenty20 matches or Steven Finn is another option.

Teams from

England: Alastair Cook (captain), Craig Kieswetter (wk), Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan, Ian Bell, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Jade Dernbach, Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Steven Finn, Chris Woakes, Samit Patel, Ravi Bopara

Sri Lanka: Tillakaratne Dilshan (captain), Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara(w), Dinesh Chandimal, Thilina Kandamby, Thissara Perera, Angelo Mathews, Suraj Randiv, Jeevan Mendis, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekara, Dimuth Karunaratne, Ajantha Mendis, Dhammika Prasad

Pitch and conditions
This will be Old Trafford's first international since the square was rotated to prevent problems caused by the setting sun in autumn as part of ambitious redevelopment plans. No relaying has taken place, the new wickets being basically made up of the old ones, and it's said to have lost a lot of the pace it used to have. Manchester was dank and grey on Friday but Saturday is expected to be warmer, with sunny intervals and a high of 20.

Stats and trivia

• Sri Lanka have never lost an ODI to England at Old Trafford, winning by 23 runs in 2002 and 33 in 2006. Their only one-day defeat at the ground came against West Indies at the 1975 World Cup.
• Alastair Cook has scored more runs than anyone else in the first four games of this series, with 267 at an average of 89, with one hundred and one fifty at a strike rate of 97.80. Not bad for a plodder.
• Lancashire spinners Stephen Parry and Gary Keedy have taken a combined 6 for 74 in 16 overs in Lancashire's last two home Twenty20s. Lancashire have seen fit to play three frontline spinners on several occasions, with Simon Kerrigan also coming into the mix.
• England have won 19 out of the 30 ODIs they've played at Old Trafford, but for the best part of a decade didn't find the ground to their liking. Since 2000, they've lost five of the nine games they've played there, with one match abandoned, but prevailed in two tight games against India and Australia in the last two ODIs in 2007 and 2010.

Match facts
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Start time 10:45 local (0945 GMT), 15:15 Sri Lanka