Morgan the guiding light in victory cruise
Tourists a class apart in seven-wicket triumph Rashid and Curran the heroes with seven for 53
The clock was ticking towards midnight when this third one-day international finally ended in an easy England victory which should have ensured sweet dreams for Eoin Morgan’s team.
They are 2-0 up in the five-match series and streets ahead of their opponents. A rain delay of almost six hours cut this match to 21 overs a side but the reduction did little to narrow the gap between the sides.
England put out a statement before play to again defend playing in Sri Lanka in the monsoon season, blaming the packed schedules, and it was a wonder there was any cricket at all, given the amount of rain. But after hours spent watching ground staff wrestle with the enormous tarpaulin covers, England cruised to victory.
Morgan led the way again, with 58 from 49 deliveries, as his team produced another polished performance with both bat and ball.
This is a multi-faceted team able to adapt as the situation demands and led by a captain who is always thinking.
In Dambulla, the combination of Olly Stone’s pace and Chris Woakes’s seam bowling won the game. This time, the pair were belted around with the new ball so, instead, Morgan asked Tom Cur- ran, playing his first ODI for six months, to reach into his bag of slower-ball tricks and backed the leg-spin variations of Adil Rashid.
Between them, they took seven for 53, ripping the heart out of Sri Lanka’s batting and crushing their spirit. Curran barely bowled a poor ball, knew exactly when to use his slower deliveries and displayed the intelligence of an old hand.
While Rashid did take a wicket with a full toss, this was a good display of leg-spin. He turned his leg-break past the outside edge and Sri Lanka, like so many others in ODI cricket, struggled to pick the googly with any certainty.
Morgan was always on the attack, willing to give Rashid a slip despite the shortened nature of the game, and rotated his seamers so as not to give Sri Lankan batsmen a chance to settle. Ben Stokes prowled around in the outfield, throwing himself at lost causes and, when he bowled, cleverly varied the pace of his bouncers to bowl four tidy overs.
England were excellent in the field, chasing down every ball and saving many runs on the boundary. It was in stark contrast to Sri Lanka, who gifted runs with fumbles and were pressured into errors by batsmen running hard.
Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal tried to anchor the innings but, instead, dragged it down, taking 42 balls to score 34, putting pressure on batsmen at the other end to go on the attack before they had gauged conditions or the bowling, often costing them their wicket.
Niroshan Dickwella and Sadeera Samarawickrama scored 55 off the first five overs but then Sri Lanka fell apart. Dickwella misread Curran’s back-of-the-hand slower ball and was caught at mid-on. Rashid’s second ball was a beautifully flighted googly that bowled Kusal Perera as he tried to drive.
Rashid varies his pace so well and, with fielders out in the deep in one-day cricket, it makes him so hard to score off. The frustration grew and it brought Rashid a wicket with a full bunger that Sadeera pulled to square leg trying to heave it into Kandy Lake. The dangerous Thisara Perera tried to smash his first ball from Rashid over long-on but was caught by a diving Jason Roy on the boundary. Only Dasun Shanaka collared the leg-spinner, smearing boundaries in his final over before he was bowled off the last ball.
Curran did Dhananjaya de Silva with another back-of-the-hand special and conceded just three off the final over, throwing down the stumps for a last-ball run-out off his own bowling to show he has athleticism to go with the brain.
Sri Lanka took early wickets to have a sniff of a chance but Morgan’s fast hands enabled him to crack boundaries through the off side, easing his way to 50 off 45 balls. Stokes had oozed intent all day and was itching to bat. He was off the mark with a glorious straight drive, played the shot of the match when he scooped a six over the keeper’s head off seamer Nuwan Pradeep and finished the game with a straight six.
All too easy.