England recorded a comfortable victory over the visiting Sri Lankans in the 2nd ODI to secure the series with one game to go.
Sri Lanka’s struggle to stay alive in the international cricket scene doesn’t seem to be easing any time soon. A doomed first-class structure, poor administration, player contract issues, nasty politics and of late, player misconduct have hurt the team’s growth
badly.
As a result of a crippled system in several ways, Sri Lanka has only won 5 one-day series in the last 5 years – 2 of them were Tri-nation series involving Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and West Indies while another was a win against Scotland.
With this defeat, Sri Lanka will be hurting at the very bottom of the ICC World Cup Super League points table.
At The Oval, England skipper Eoin Morgan won the toss and inserted Sri Lanka to bat first.
The Sri Lankan innings was basically about one batsman and a couple of other guys who supported him as the batting woes continued.
It was actually a tremendous comeback from Sri Lanka who looked lost at one stage at 21 for 4 to end up at 241 runs on the board. But it being the efforts of just 3 batsmen was an issue for the Islanders.
Watching Dhananjaya de Silva bat is like watching fine art in motion. His drives were smooth as silk, his pull was dashing and the upper cut mesmerizing. The elegant right-hander scored an outlandish 91 runs when compared to how Sri Lanka has fared in this tour so far.
The key factor of his innings was that he covered the basics right and played the ball late. That allowed him not only to negate the swing but also to look for scoring options off them. His firm pull did not allow the bowlers to go short either but eventually,
he perished to a well-directed bouncer from David Willey.
To support him, Dasun Shanaka earned himself a painstaking 47 runs while Wanindu Hasaranga and Chamika Karunaratne saw off a considerable amount of deliveries scoring 26 and 21 runs respectively.
The Sri Lankan top-order struggled against some quality swing bowling from England’s left-arm duo Sam Curran and David Willey. The pair picked up all the Sri Lankan wickets to fall with Curran recording career-best figures of 5 for 48 while Willey bagged the rest of them at the expense of 64 runs.
Coming out to bat, the English made the chase look effortless as they crossed the line with 8 wickets intact and 7 overs to go.
Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy gave England a positive start with a 76-run opening stand which then was smoothly carried through to victory by the senior duo Eoin Morgan and Joe Root.
Roy scored a busy 60 while Bairstow contributed a useful 29 runs.Morgan and Root put up an unbeaten 140-run stand to which the England one-day captain contributed 75 runs while their Test skipper made a fine 54.
Sri Lankan bowlers, who have been good throughout this series weren’t given any room to capitalise in this game. The English batters struck the ball firmly right from the start and were untroubled throughout the innings.
In contrast to such a plain performance from the Lankan bowlers, Sam Curran took home the man-of-the-match award for his brilliant spell.
Result
| Batsmen | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pathum Nissanka | b Sam Curran | 5 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 41.67 |
| Kusal Perera | lbw b Sam Curran | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Avishka Fernando | lbw b Sam Curran | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Dhananjaya de Silva | c Joe Root b David Willey | 91 | 91 | 13 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Charith Asalanka | c George Garton b David Willey | 3 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 27.27 |
| Wanindu Hasaranga | c Sam Billings b Sam Curran | 26 | 49 | 2 | 0 | 53.06 |
| Dasun Shanaka | c Sam Curran b David Willey | 47 | 67 | 2 | 1 | 70.15 |
| Chamika Karunaratne | c Jonny Bairstow b Sam Curran | 21 | 38 | 1 | 0 | 55.26 |
| Binura Fernando | c Adil Rashid b David Willey | 17 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 113.33 |
| Dushmantha Chameera | not out | 14 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 116.67 |
| Asitha Fernando | not out | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Extras | 14 (b 0 , lb 1 , nb 0, w 13, pen 0) |
| Total | 241/9 (50 Overs, RR: 4.82) |
| Fall of Wickets | 1-4 (1.2) Kusal Perera, 2-6 (1.4) Avishka Fernando, 3-12 (3.3) Pathum Nissanka, 4-21 (6.5) Charith Asalanka, 5-86 (20.3) Wanindu Hasaranga, 6-164 (34.3) Dhananjaya de Silva, 7-206 (44.7) Dasun Shanaka, 8-217 (46.1) Chamika Karunaratne, 9-229 (49.1) Binura Fernando, |
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| David Willey | 10 | 1 | 64 | 4 | 6.40 | |
| Sam Curran | 10 | 1 | 48 | 5 | 4.80 | |
| Tom Curran | 10 | 0 | 43 | 0 | 4.30 | |
| Mark Wood | 10 | 1 | 35 | 0 | 3.50 | |
| Adil Rashid | 10 | 0 | 50 | 0 | 5.00 | |
| Batsmen | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jonny Bairstow | b Wanindu Hasaranga | 60 | 52 | 10 | 0 | 115.38 |
| Jason Roy | c Dhananjaya de Silva b Chamika Karunaratne | 29 | 36 | 3 | 1 | 80.56 |
| Joe Root | not out | 68 | 87 | 5 | 0 | 78.16 |
| Eoin Morgan | not out | 75 | 83 | 8 | 1 | 90.36 |
| Extras | 12 (b 1 , lb 0 , nb 0, w 11, pen 0) |
| Total | 244/2 (43 Overs, RR: 5.67) |
| Fall of Wickets | 1-76 (12.4) Jonny Bairstow, 2-104 (17.1) Jason Roy, |
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dushmantha Chameera | 9 | 0 | 46 | 0 | 5.11 | |
| Binura Fernando | 9 | 0 | 53 | 0 | 5.89 | |
| Asitha Fernando | 10 | 0 | 54 | 0 | 5.40 | |
| Wanindu Hasaranga | 7 | 0 | 46 | 1 | 6.57 | |
| Chamika Karunaratne | 6 | 0 | 34 | 1 | 5.67 | |
| Dhananjaya de Silva | 2 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 5.00 | |
