England hit by stomach bug

Four England players have been struck down with a stomach bug © Getty Images

Paul Collingwood, the England one-day captain, is one of four players suffering from a stomach bug in Sri Lanka ahead of the one-day series next week, and is a doubt for their warm-up match in Colombo on Friday.

Collingwood, Stuart Broad, Luke Wright and Alastair Cook are all struggling with what their coach, Peter Moores, described as a "stomach illness", but he is hopeful of all four being available for selection for Monday's first one-dayer at Dambulla.

"If it's like Stuart's it was only a 24 to 36-hour thing so hopefully it will clear up pretty quickly," Moores said. "Stuart trained for the first time and is still a bit weak and it looks like it's going to be one or two days for the rest of the lads.

"Alastair Cook's version of it is that if you're going to get it, let's get it out of the way before the big games. There's nothing you can do about it," he said. "We have a 15-man squad for these things and if you're going to get a bug, you get a bug."

England's only warm-up game is against a Sri Lanka Board President's XI on Friday, before the start of the five-match series.