SHOCKING ENGLAND SUFFER RECORD DEFEAT
Sri Lanka run riot after captain Morgan is rested
BEN STOKES threw the ball down forcibly, the colour of his face matching the bright red Twenty20 shirts England were forced to wear because of a colour clash with Sri lanka.
His anger summed up an end ofseries horror show that gave England, statistically, their worst ever One-day International defeat.
Stokes’s moment of extreme frustration came at the end of an over during which his figures had suffered from lazy fielding by Mark Wood and Moeen Ali. Sadly, that was typical of a shocking dead-rubber display that England will want to quickly forget.
Not since they crashed to Scotland last summer have the top one-day side in the world endured such a day of complete misery with ball, bat and in the field.
It gave Sri lanka a 219-run duckworth-lewis-Stern win in Colombo on a day when the monsoon season predictably had the final word, England collapsing to 132 for nine in reply to 366 for six before the rain came yet again.
England still won 3-1 in what has been a largely soggy, sorry excuse for a 50- over series, but they were made to pay for picking three rusty bowlers for their first run-out of the series and for omitting their most in-form batsman.
Eoin Morgan said before the series he was prepared to leave himself out if necessary, but he meant if he did not justify his World Cup place rather than controversially step down when in prime touch, as he did yesterday.
‘We made changes to give opportunities to those who hadn’t played on tour,’ said Morgan after being named man of the series, despite his absence yesterday.
‘As an exercise it was still valuable, but we were totally outplayed and we will just have to learn as much as we can from this.’
But should the captain have left himself out? ‘My form shouldn’t be a factor when it comes to thinking about a World Cup,’ said Morgan. ‘What was best for the team was letting other guys get experience under their belts.’
In fairness, this was one of England’s last chances to experiment before they name their World Cup squad in April — following their series against the West Indies in February and March and before they entertain Pakistan.
So, this fifth OdI at the Premadasa Stadium represented a shootout between Tom Curran, Wood and Sam Curran, with the missing Olly Stone and david Willey also in the frame for the one remaining place in England’s first-choice World Cup line-up. If that proves the case, the older Curran has his nose in front, not least because he excelled earlier in this series, but even he had a day to forget as Sri lanka relocated the mojo missing in their one-day cricket for two years.
Tom and Sam Curran started the day celebrating becoming the first brothers to appear for England in the same match since Adam and Ben Hollioake 19 years ago, but were soon squabbling over more sub-standard fielding.
‘Come on Sam, dive for the ball,’ shouted Tom at his little brother when he failed to cut off a boundary from dhananjaya de Silva as Sri lanka rattled up their highest one-day score against England.
The one real mistake England made was picking a seventh bowler in Curran the younger, to replace Morgan, rather than another batsman in Joe denly, but even that was to give a chance to the player of last summer’s Test series against India.
Sadly, Sam Curran did not grasp it, going for 46 off his six overs as Sri lanka’s top four all made flashing half-centuries. Niroshan dickwella fell five short of a century and Kusal Mendis hit six sixes in his 56 off 33 balls.
Tom Curran took two wickets but was expensive, particularly with the new ball, while Wood failed to match the early- series pace of Stone, and liam Plunkett looked like a man who had little preparation because of his recent wedding.
When England are bad, they are really bad, and here they were truly awful as they crashed to 28 for four in reply, the aggressive approach that has brought them so much success only hastening their downfall yesterday.
Only some spirited swinging from Stokes, who defied cramp in the extreme humidity to smash 67 off 60 balls, mainly on one leg, gave England anything like a semblance of respectability before they crashed to the brink of being bowled out. Another storm brought their misery to a slightly premature end.
‘Our attitude was poor today and that has to be addressed,’ added Morgan. ‘Our skill levels were off and we will have to find an answer, otherwise we will be papering over the cracks.’