England bowlers once again came to the party and restricted Sri Lanka to a paltry total of 111/7 in their 20 overs. In reply, England stumbled to 36/4 and were in a bit of trouble. But Sam Billings, Liam Livingstone and Sam Curran steered England home without too much fuss.
It wasn’t quite the typical England win where they brushed aside the opposition. They huffed and puffed a little bit, but a target of 112 was never going to trouble them. Sri Lanka never really took off with the bat, but they did fight with the ball.
Sri Lanka won their second toss in a row and opted to bat once again. And once again, the batting was abysmal. Danushka Gunathilaka was runout in the second over, and it was due to some brilliant footwork from Sam Curran. Avishka Fernando didn’t last long either, and Sri Lanka’s powerplay yielded a mere 26 runs as England gave nothing away. Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis stitched a 50-run stand, but it came off nine overs.
The first boundary took a long time, coming only in the eighth over. Adil Rashid got the Sri Lankan skipper for the second time in a row before Mark Wood got wickets off successive deliveries to dismiss Mendis and Niroshan Dickwella. Wanindu Hasaranga and Dasun Shanaka couldn’t do much either and struggled. Only Isuru Udana’s 14-ball 19 pushed Sri Lanka over 100 and helped them get to 111.
In fact, in the entire Sri Lankan innings, Mendis and Udana were the only ones to score boundaries. A total of four fours and two sixes were hit. It wasn’t a flat pitch, but it wasn’t as tough to bat on as the Sri Lankan batters made it to be.
In reply, England suffered an early collapse. Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan were back in the hut inside the first 15 balls of the innings as Binura Fernando and Dushmantha Chameera picked up the respective wickets. Jason Roy and skipper Eoin Morgan hit a couple of boundaries each before they fell in back to back overs as Hasaranga and Udana got into the wickets.
At 36/4, England were in trouble, but the score wasn’t too big. Sam Billings and Liam Livingstone joined hands to add 54 runs for the fifth wicket and got England back on track. They rotated strike beautifully and never allowed the asking rate to get big.
The rain came down after 12 overs to reduce the game to 18-overs-a-side. The target became 108, but that didn’t deter England lower middle-order. Hasaranga knocked over Billings in the 15th over before Sam Curran walked in and wiped out the remainder of the chase with 11 balls to spare. Livingstone finished on an unbeaten 29.
England completed a series win 2-0 with one game to go. This was Sri Lanka’s 11th defeat in their last 13 T20Is as their abysmal run continued.
Brief Scores
Sri Lanka 111/7 (Mendis 39, Udana 19*, Wood 2/18, Rashid 2/24) lost to England 108/5 (Livingstone 29*, Billings 24, Hasaranga 2/20, Fernando 1/17) by five wickets (DLS method)
