Sri Lanka should be at full strength with Muttiah Muralitharan expecting to be fit for the World Cup quarterfinal against England.
The English, on the other had, have lingering injury concerns. It's been the story of England's campaign.
England used 17 players in the group stage - squads are restricted to 15 players - after being force to bring in reinforcements for Stuart Broad, Kevin Pietersen, Ajmal Shahzad and Michael Yardy, who has returned home suffering from depression. Paul Collingwood needs a knee operation, but is staying with the team. Tim Bresnan has a recurrence of a calf injury.
In addition they lost to Bangladesh and Ireland in the group stages, beat the Netherlands, South Africa and West Indies, but tied with India to finish third in Group B.
In the group stage England has not coped well in the batting powerplays and has lost 14 wickets, the most by any team. Yet they were the only side in the tournament not to be beaten by a major nation in the group stage.
Sri Lanka began the competition as one of the favorites and is tough to beat at home. They still have their original squad of 15 available and have played 14 of them.
Muralitharan has been the only concern this week. At 38 he is the oldest player in the competition and is nursing a hamstring injury. He is the leading wicket-taker in ODI's with 530 wickets at 23.00 and an economy rate of 3.92 runs per over.
In all international cricket he has a 1,343 wickets at 22.83. The only other player with more than a thousand is retired Australian legspinner Shane Warne, with 1001 at 25.51.
Previous World Cups
Sri Lanka won in 1996 and were runners-up in 2007.
In 1996 the term ''pinch hitters'' was pinched from baseball and added to the cricket lexicon when Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana changed the way opening batsmen played in ODI cricket forever. Sri Lanka walloped England in the quarterfinal at Faisalabad. Chasing 236 to win, they were 113-2 in the 13th over when Jayasuriya was out for 82 off 44 balls. Both openers were out for single figures in the final against Australia, but Aravinda de Silva scored an unbeaten 107 and Sri Lanka won by seven wickets to become the first side to win the final batting second.
England were runners-up in 1979, 1987 and 1992.
In 1979 West Indies won by 92 runs at Lord's. Viv Richards made an unbeaten 138 off 157 balls and Collis King 86 off 66 balls, their partnership adding 139. Captain Mike Brearley said of their batting ''I felt helpless. I knew there was nothing more we could do.''
In 1987 Australia won by seven runs at Calcutta. Captain Mike Gatting took most of the criticism for being bowled attempting to reverse-sweep Allan Border's first ball. In 1992 Pakistan won by 22 runs. Imran Khan's urged his team to fight like ''cornered tigers'' and to take wickets rather than rely on containment to win. England were bowled out for 227.
ODI's: Played 44; England 23, Sri Lanka 21
World Cup: Played 8; England 6 Sri Lanka 2
At Premadasa: Played 4; England 1 Sri Lanka 3
Sri Lanka has won 49 of the 81 ODI's on this ground, winning 60.49 percent of matches, losing 26 games, with six no results. England has won two of its six games there, against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. They have lost three games to Sri Lanka and one to India.
The average first innings score is 230, in floodlit games 235.
In floodlit games 46 out of 70 completed games have been won by the side batting first. Recent contests have become more even following $8 million renovations at the stadium and there is no longer such a dramatic change in conditions at night.
Is the Sri Lanka captain, No. 3 batsman and wicketkeeper.
He scored the most runs of any batsman in the group stages of the competition with 363 runs at 121 with a hundred against New Zealand and two fifties. He was 73 not out when rain forced the abandonment of the match against Australia. He has played 288 ODIs, keeping wicket in 245 of them and has scored nine of his eleven hundreds in the role. His overall batting average is 37.91, but that rises to 39.85 when keeping wicket as well.
Has been a calm presence throughout England's five months away and has turned himself into a fast scorer since becoming captain. When he was just a player he averaged 31.68 with a strike rate of 74.80. As captain he averages 40.03 in ODIs at a strike rate of 86.97. He has played all 13 of England's ODIs this winter, scoring 508 runs at 39.08 at a strike rate of 91.53, including 2x100 and 5x50.
He has scored 329 runs at 54.83 in this tournament at a strike rate of 97.34. He hit a blistering 158 off 145 balls with 18x4 and a six in the match against India where England matched India's 338.
In the group stages Sri Lanka reviewed eight decisions and one was changed. England checked eleven decisions and two were changed. The umpires for this match are Billy Doctrove and Simon Taufel. Doctrove has reversed one of his eight reviews and Taufel one of his six.
Bell needs four runs to become the 12th batsman to score 3,000 runs for England.
Eoin Morgan needs 26 to reach 2,000, which includes 744 for Ireland.
Tim Bresnan needs one wicket for 50.
Mahela Jayawardene needs 46 for 1,000 runs against England.
