England urged to ‘stay hungry’ after series victory in Sri Lanka

Joe Root advised his England cricket side to “stay hungry” after giving themselves the perfect start to a big year with a 2-0 series win in Sri Lanka.

England walked out on day four of their second Test in Galle with everything still to do in a game but left the field deep in the evening session with a six-wicket victory under their belts.

To get there the tourists needed to be ruthless with the ball and resilient with bat and found a handful of key performers to carry them over the line.

Spinners Jack Leach and Dom Bess shrugged off their first-innings frustrations, when they drew blank across 64 overs, taking four wickets each as the hosts imploded for 126 all out.

Then opener Dom Sibley shelved his run of low scores to make 56 not out as he and the fluent Jos Buttler (46 not out)

led their team to their target of 164.

England will enjoy their achievement before swiftly departing for India and an even stiffer fourtest series, the next staging post in a packed 2021 that concludes with an Ashes trip.

And Root, man-of-theseries for his 426 runs, was looking forward rather than back.

“That is exactly what we wanted,” he said.

“The challenge now is to replicate this over

and over again as a team.

“We have to look at this as a platform, a starting position, and not be happy with what we’ve achieved here.

“We’ve got four very important games coming up against arguably the best team in the world in their own conditions.

“But the guys know there is so much further this group can go. We have just got to stay hungry and we have just got to keep looking to get better.”

Dom Sibley: Ended run of low scores with 56 not out.