Mighty England marched on Sri Lanka to win the opener of the ODI series by 5 wickets after chasing 185/4 in 34.5 overs to lead the series by 1-0 at Durham.
Chris Woakes, playing in the 1st ODI since September 2020, ended with fixtures 10-5-18-4 after Sri Lanka collapsed to suffer their fourth defeat in a row.
Sri Lanka locked their horns with England after adding three debutants in their playing 11. Due to a lack of experience on their side, Sri Lanka already had their hands tied to their back.
In the playing 11, apart from the debutants, the side had players with experience of one, six, and twenty ODI’s while Kusal Perera was the only player with a century in 50 over fixtures.
To understand things more clearly, Eoin Morgan with participation in 244 ODI’s has played more matches than the whole Sri Lankan team.
There had been plenty of things going for Sri Lanka behind the scenes apart from a 3-0 loss against England. Kusal Mendis, Danushka Gunathilaka, and Niroshan Dickwella were sent home after breaching the bio-secure bubble which means that Kusal Perera was left without the troika.
It was up to Perera to take this unstable playing 11 into the ground and he managed the best out of it. Batting first, Sri Lanka managed to score 47/3 at the end of the powerplay.
If the fighting 73 of Kusal Perera had not happened, Sri Lanka could have faced worse consequences. He laid the platform for a fighting score before the collapse happened.
While batting, Perera had scored at a strike rate of more than 200 in the first ten. Wanindu Hasaranga, the other batsman with a half-century in the innings, took his time to stand firm on the crease and he was 10 off 30 once.
While he opened his arms in the 19th over against Adil Rashid to get some momentum, Sri Lanka made good progress at 143/3. Hasaranga and Perera made a brilliant 99 runs stand before Woakes hurt their intentions.
Hasaranga got himself dismissed off Woakes’s on a short ball while Dhananjaya Lakshan lost his wicket at first slip. Moeen Ali removed Ramesh Mendis but the big fish was trapped in the 33rd over before Perera was caught in the deep on the leg side while trying to go big off David Willey.
There wasn’t much from the other batsmen once Sri Lanka slipped to 152 for 7 but England was quite sloppy in the field. Chamika Karunaratne and Binura Fernando offered them two run-out opportunities but the hosts did not take any.
Joe Root then dropped an easy catch at first slip to given Karunaratne another chance. Although, none of the missed chances had any impact on England as the inexperienced Sri Lankan team failed to perform.
England was in no mood to go away from the path while chasing and raced to 54 for 1 in the first five overs. Liam Livingstone hit a maximum but fell in the fifth over after scoring nine off Chamika Karunaratne.
Jonny Bairstow looked in a hurry and had already smashed 43 off just 20 balls when Binura Fernando bowled a regular delivery and Bairstow found the inside edge to chops his stumps.
There was a slight twist in the game as England soon found themselves in a rabbit hole, England found themselves at 80 for 4 with Morgan and Sam Billings losing wickets in quick succession.
The expert in business, Joe Root scored a half-century and a 91 runs stand alongside Moeen Ali to ease the side across the line. Things, however, could have been different if Morgan and Moeen would have not given another chance.
Brief scores: Sri Lanka 185 in 42.3 overs (Kusal Perera 73; Chris Woakes 4-18) lost to England 189/5 in 34.5 overs (Joe Root 79*; Dushmantha Chameera 3-50) by five wickets.