For the second time in a little over a week, England suffered a humiliation in Wellington’s Cake Tin with a fine century from Joe Root insufficient to prevent Sri Lanka from romping to a nine-wicket win with time to spare, Kumar Sangakkara and Lahiru Thirimanne both scoring unbeaten hundreds as they compiled an unbroken second wicket stand of 212.
“England made it easy for me,” said Thirimanne. It is England’s third defeat to sides ranked above them, following earlier heavy drubbings from Australia and New Zealand, and now they must beat both Bangladesh and Afghanistan to qualify for the quarter-final in Melbourne. Nothing, on this evidence, can be guaranteed.
Afterwards the England captain Eoin Morgan blamed his bowling attack for the manner of the defeat after the England batsman had posted a perfectly defendable 309 for six. “We were absolutely not below par in our score,” he said. “We were happy going into the halfway stage that we had put in a great performance, and showed our class, which is great. But when we bowl one bad ball every over we are going to be punished.”
“We bowled a lot of bad balls and in a couple of days when we get the Hawkeye charts back the proof will be there. When we are firing we are predictably good. Two tall guys who get bounce and pace and two who swing the ball, that is the balance of our attack. When we bowl well we put guys under pressure and create opportunities and we didn’t do that.”
None of the England pace quartet emerged with a wicket, the single success going to Moeen Ali who had Tllakaratne Dilshan caught for 44. But Jimmy Anderson proved the most economical, conceding a run a ball, while Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Steve Finn went for 67, 72 and 54 from 10, 9.2 and eight overs respectively. Against New Zealand here Finn had conceded 49 from only two overs.
The England fielding did little to back up the bowling, a performance as shoddy as it has been all tour. In particular Thirimmane was dropped on seven off Broad, with Joe Root at first slip nominally the culprit although it was the wicketkeeper Jos Buttler who should have taken the chance from the left hander, opting not to go for it at the last second. “We created a couple of chances which went down, which was disappointing because it hasn’t been happening in training,” said Morgan. “It is definitely harder to take than the defeats against Australia and New Zealand. When you don’t turn up for a race like those first two games it’s scratched. Today when we turn up and we’re beaten in the fashion we were is harder to take.”
