Sri Lanka v. England - ODI series

[Donny]

Sri Lanka v England, 1st ODI, Dambulla

The main event: Flintoff v Murali?

Andrew Miller in Dambulla


It has already been a winter of hard work for England's cricketers, and that was just to get past the easy bit. But now, with Bangladesh successfully put to one side, and the West Indies tour still a dot on the horizon, it is time to get stuck into arguably the toughest six weeks of England's three-pronged campaign.

The heat and humidity of Dhaka and Chittagong might have seemed oppressive, but it is as nothing compared to the furnace that awaits England at Dambulla tomorrow, where their tour of Sri Lanka will begin in earnest. Up till now, England's gravest threat has come from the elements (and their own fears of an upset). Tomorrow, however, they face a side that is brimful of talent, and more importantly, one that is gunning for vengeance after the last, fractious, tour early in 2001.

On that occasion, England had already wrapped up an historic 2-1 Test series win by the time the one-day circus came to town, and they treated the three matches as something of an afterthought. Nasser Hussain had already flown home early to reap the plaudits of back-to-back series victories in the subcontinent, and in his absence, England were led to a 3-0 defeat by Graham Thorpe. But the current England squad takes its one-day cricket far more seriously than it did back then. A repeat performance would be a massive disappointment.

England were the opponents in Dambulla's inaugural fixture, on March 23, 2001, and for the second time in two tours they will be facing an unknown quantity at the venue. A belated decision was taken this month to install floodlights at the ground - they only received the OK on Thursday - and, after Sri Lanka had tested the conditions in a warm-up game on Saturday, their captain Marvan Atapattu gave them a guarded thumbs-up.

"The floodlights were OK," said Atapattu. "But personally, I did not feel they were as bright as the ones at the Premadasa [in Colombo]. There was also a bit of dew later on, which will be a factor. My feeling is that the ball will move around a bit more in the early evening." The toss, in other words, will be crucial. The match starts at 0830 GMT.

With the onus on seam bowling, Sri Lanka have already indicated that they will be giving a debut to their 21-year-old quickie, Nuwan Kulasekara, as back-up to the established new-ball pairing of Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa. England, on the other hand, are unlikely to jeopardise the balance of their batting by including James Kirtley at the expense of one of the spinners, but one change that is highly likely is a new opening partner for Marcus Trescothick.

Vikram Solanki looked to have cracked international cricket when he laced a wonderful century at The Oval last summer, but he was all at sea against Bangladesh last week, scoring only 11 runs in his three innings. He followed that up with a fifth-ball duck in Saturday's warm-up game, and it cannot be long before Andrew Strauss is given an opportunity to prove his mettle. By his own admission, Strauss will never be a big hitter in the mould of Trescothick or Andrew Flintoff, but his 83 from 88 balls on Saturday was not the effort of a sluggard.

No series against Sri Lanka, however, can be contemplated without due deference to Muttiah Muralitharan. "He is the best spinner in the world today," said Trescothick, one of a posse of left-handers who got the better of him last time around. "We have our game-plans for combatting him, and without giving too much away, it's about countering his spin, not nullifying him completely."

That is just as well, because Flintoff, England's man of the moment, doesn't know the meaning of the word "nullify". Flintoff and Murali are two good friends from their days at Lancashire, and when they come across each other in the middle, it promises to be a contest to savour. It might even be the defining contest. For years, Sri Lanka have been accused of being a one-man side. In Bangladesh last week, so were England. If one or other gets the upper hand in the coming days, it will serve as a potent marker for the rest of the tour.

Sri Lanka (probable): 1 Sanath Jayasuriya, 2 Romesh Kaluwitharana (wk), 3 Marvan Atapattu (capt), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Kumar Sangakkara, 6 Russel Arnold, 7 Upul Chandana, 8 Chaminda Vaas, 9 Nuwan Zoysa, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 Nuwan Kulasekara.

England (probable): 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Andrew Strauss, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Rikki Clarke, 7 Chris Read (wk), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Gareth Batty, 10 Richard Johnson, 11 James Anderson.

[zoia]

2/16 in the 9 over

Fernando 1/6
Vaas 1/10


Fernando got his first odi wicket in his 2nd over his bowling great line atm lets see if this can contuine. England currently have collingwood and the captian vaughan in at the crease

[zoia]

well bad news for england fans they are now 4/33 off 17 overs 2 wickets each to vass and ferando. The way this match is going england will be out for 150 or less. Collingwood is on 13 runs clarke is on 1. Andy flintoff was cought for 1 off Sangakkara off the bowlin of vass. Vaughan was bowled by Fernando

[Donny]

Welcome to Sri Lanka, fellas.

All out for 88.

Vaas 9.1 2 15 3
Fernando 7 2 13 2 (1w)
Muralitharan 10 0 15 1 (1w)
Kulasekara 9 1 19 2 (1w)
Chandana 10 1 23 2 (1w)
Jayasuriya 1 0 3 0

Top scorer ? Collingwood with 31.

[Donny]

Well, the old team of Jaya and Kalu aren't mucking around.

After 3 overs, Jayasuriya is 14 from 12 and Kaluwitharana is 8 from 6.

[2 PIES IN CAIRNS]

Almost time for the "gold protector"!! Game Over!!

Pete

[Donny]

0/62 in the 12th.

[Donny]

OUCH !!

Maybe England thought they'd played really well to beat Bangladesh. Welcome back to the real world, boys.

Jayasuriya - 46 from 41 balls. Kaluwitharana - 36 from 42.

0/89 from 13.5 overs.

[Donny]

ODI Lowest Team Totals for England

Based on all matches up to and including
ODI #2063: Sri Lanka v England, 1st ODI, 18 Nov 2003


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


86 (32.4 overs) England v Australia Manchester 2001
88 (46.1 overs) England v Sri Lanka Dambulla 2003/04
89 (37.2 overs) England v N.Z. Wellington (WS) 2001/02
93 (36.2 overs) England v Australia Leeds 1975
94 (31.7 overs) England v Australia Melbourne 1978/79

[Donny]

Not just bad losers ... horrible ones

The Wisden Verdict by Andrew Miller

For one reason or another, the English have long been accused of being bad losers. Today, they fully justified that tag. This loss was not just bad, it was horrible. Not only did they crumble to their lowest one-day score overseas, they did so despite avoiding the perils of Dambulla's new floodlights, after Michael Vaughan's first successful toss in 95 days had enabled them to bat in good oldfashioned broad daylight.

So much for kicking on after their heroics in Bangladesh last week. Before the first 15 overs had been bowled, England were facing precisely the same situation that Bangladesh had made their trademark in those three matches. And they couldn't even muster an equivalent recovery. Like the Banglas before them, they battened down a few remaining hatches, and survived until well into the final ten overs. But even Bangladesh rattled along at more than two runs per over.

In all, England totted up nine single-figure scores out of 11, which were recorded on the scoreboard with a preceding '0', like an oldfashioned dialling code (Chris Read even got an international one: 000). As a third of these read 03, presumably that's the number for Coventry. That is certainly where the stadium officials would have liked to send the England team, had the match failed to reach the floodlit part of the evening. Otherwise they would have had to rewrite their commemorative plaque at the entrance to the grandstand.

One of the recurring themes of the last six weeks has been the unresponsive nature of Bangladesh's pitches. It doesn't help their development, and neither, it seems, does it help the opposition. Chaminda Vaas, who seems to have been around forever, took great delight in reminding England what it is to play on a wicket with a bit of nip. England's bowlers, on the other hand, looked listless, still striving to make things happen instead of using the conditions. Admittedly, under the circumstances, they had little alternative.

For Andrew Flintoff, it was rather a heavy landing after his effortless dominance of the last few weeks. A timid batting demise was followed by a ruthless dissection at the hands of Romesh Kaluwitharana, and he conceded almost half as many runs in 3.5 overs (27) as he did in the entire Bangladesh series (63).

As the fans filed out of the ground and the team skulked off to lick its wounds, those nice new floodlights were at least put to a better use than England had found for them. A local school commandeered half the pitch, erected some mini-rugby posts, and began a late-night tournament. With the World Cup final fast approaching, England have one last chance to persuade their travelling fans that Sunday's match is worth braving the hangovers for.