Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ENGLAND GO DOWN FIGHTING
World No.1s bowled awfully, batted terribly, caught badly and bickered childishly throughout their record one-day defeat in soggy Sri Lanka
ENGLAND’S attitude and performance in a rudderless record-breaking battering at the hands of Sri Lanka was slammed by watching skipper Eoin Morgan
The bowling was poor, the fielding was worse and players argued with each other as the heat and the Sri Lankans got them rattled.
Captain Morgan dropped himself from the side in order to give other players a chance to impress after sealing the series with a game to spare. But he was forced to witness a horror show from his team.
At times the tourists, the world’s No.1 one-day team, looked like a rabble.
The skipper promised a root and branch review of the 219run defeat, their heaviest in terms of runs, on the Duckworth Lewis Stern method as the rain curtailed a miserable night in Colombo.
“We didn’t take our game forward today. In fact, there were areas we went backwards,” said the skipper. “Our fielding was extremely poor, our attitude was very poor and that has to be addressed.
“We’ll have to break it all down and find an answer otherwise we will be papering over the cracks. We need to have a look at everything from our preparation to our skill.
“When you leave yourself out the one thing you don’t want to compromise is winning the game. You want to see players who come in be challenged and put under pressure, and we certainly saw that and we didn’t have a lot of answers.”
Seam bowlers Mark Wood, Liam Plunkett and Sam Curran were all given their first games of the series and were desperate to impress. Instead they were taken apart by the Sri Lanka batsmen.
At one stage the two Currans, Tom and Sam, were involved in a tetchy exchange despite the pair enjoying their dream of playing in a first international match together.
They became the first brothers since Ben and Adam Hollioake almost 20 years ago to be selected in the same England side.
But their smiles before the game were swiftly removed as the hosts tucked in on a beautiful batting surface to post 366-6 in their 50 overs.
England needed a record runchase to win. But with just three specialist batsmen, the task proved well beyond them, especially after being reduced to 28-4.
The only answers with the bat came from Ben Stokes who fought severe cramp to hit 67 before he was caught on the boundary and limped off in clear discomfort.
The conditions were hot and steamy and Stokes found it hard to move properly almost as soon as his innings began, which is probably why coach Trevor Bayliss is keen to see him save some training miles for the game.