If Sri Lanka looked out of place in their whites, then they never looked more comfortable than when in their more colourful attire. A team much more confident and, it has to be said, skilled in the shorter format of the game (greatly helped by the return of certain players, particularly Lasith Malinga), the Sri Lankans totally outclassed their feeble opponents. With Stuart Broad taking over the captaincy, England opted to leave out Ian Bell (arguably their most in-form batsman) in favour of three ‘all-rounder’s’. While the inclusion of Ravi Bopara, Samit Patel and Luke Wright may have provided more options with the ball, it left England’s middle order batting somewhat depleted. As Mahela Jayewardene and Kumar Sangakkara expertly demonstrated, ‘proper’ batsman (i.e. touch players and stroke makers) can be just as effective in the shorter format. The way they batted was sublime and put England’s sloggers to shame. While the trio mentioned above are all undeniably good cricketers, none posses the batting skills needed to marshal the middle overs of play (often when the spinner is on and quick singles and strike rotation is needed). Trying to whack every ball out of the ground simply wont work. On the plus side, the partnership between Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan was brilliant; with Morgan in particular taking full advantage of a number of full tosses. Had one managed to go on and see out the remaining overs, things might have been different. As it was, England were at least twenty runs short and thus never in the contest. Lets hope the One Dayers are more competitive.
CricketChicks ODI team for the series against Sri Lanka:
1) Alastair Cook
2) Craig Kieswetter
3) Jonathon Trott
4) Kevin Pietersen
5) Ian Bell
6) Eoin Morgan
7) Tim Bresnan
8) Stuart Broad
9) Graeme Swann
10) Chris Tremlett
11) Steven Finn or James Anderson
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