England cruise to easy win

Elmo RODRIGOPULLE reporting from England

The Sri Lankans suffered one of their most humiliating and embarrassing defeats in the history of their one-day game when England thrashed them by 10 wickets in the fourth One-day NatWest International at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on Wednesday, to level the five-match series two-all with one to go.

After bundling out the Sri Lankans for 174 in 43.4 overs, England waltzed to victory on 171 in 23.5 overs without loss on the Duckworth/Lewis method, with Alastair Cook making 95 in 75 balls with 16 fours in 104 minutes and Craig Kieswetter 72 off 68 balls with 8 fours and 3 sixes in 104 minutes.

Cook played the best innings of his one-day career. Fours flowed from his bat with ease. His cover driving was a treat to watch as he pierced the field with well timed and powerful drives. He found an ideal partner in Kieswetter who played a belligerent innings.

With Cook nearing a century, Kieswetter would not have been faulted had he played pat ball cricket like did Angelo Mathews at Lord’s and allowed his captain make a century. But to Kieswetter, Cook and England it was the winning that mattered and not individual milestones. Chandimal and Mathews who made a mockery of the game at Lord’s better take notice.

When Alastair Cook won the toss and asked Sri Lanka in to bat, when questioned by Nick Knight who officiated at the tossing ceremony Tillekeratne Dilshan, said that had he won the toss he would have batted. Cook said that the tinge of grass on the wicket and the over cast conditions prompted him to put the Lankans in.

But in batting first the Lankans made a mess of it. Had the Lankans made a formidable score, that would have put the pressure on England, it would have been a different story.

It was the inability of the Sri Lankan batsmen to play the moving ball that brought about this humiliating defeat. With the wicket fresh and with a little bit of grass on it, and in over cast conditions the ball was bound to move either way, as was proved by James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad and Jade Dernbach.

But the Lankans who play on flat pitches back home and in conditions where the ball hardly moves, were all at sea against the England bowlers who moved the ball both ways.

Other than for Kumar Sangakkara who showed the correct approach and the technique in making 75 in 107 balls with 7 fours and who was associated in two partnerships with Suraj Randiv 37 for the 5th wicket and 72 for the 6th wicket with Angelo Mathews, it would have been a batting calamity.

The poor batting by the Lankan batsmen was inexplicable.

What they had to do was to play the bowling on its merits, score when the bad ball came along and put on an imposing score on the board that would have put the pressure on England who were batting second. But when skipper Dilshan went without scoring with the score on one, it jolted the batting and when the consistent Mahela Jayawardena went next for 9 at 10, it signaled the beginning of the end for the Lankans. Had it not been for the partnerships between Sangakkara and Randiv and Sangakkara and Mathews and the lone hand played by Sangakkara who was running short of partners, the batting would have been in shambles.

Sangakkara gave a lesson on how to bat against the moving ball.

However to the credit of the England seamers- James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad and Jade Dernbach it must be said that they used the wicket and the conditions admirably and they had the batsmen in a web. Broad who went wicket less in the three earlier games was made to look menacing.

Their figures of 3 for 24 by Anderson 2 for 39 by Tim Bresnan, 2 for 37 by Stuart Broad and 3 for 38 by Jade Dernbach showed their dominance over the Lankan batsmen who were clueless against the moving ball.

The target of 171 off 48 overs set by the Duckworth/Lewis system and scored in 23.5 by Cook and Kieswetter was a sad indictment on the Lankan bowling, that to say the least, was wayward and lacking in penetration. Trent Bridge, Nottingham, Wednesday