Daily Updates with RF Rizwan Farrukh
Sri Lanka bowled England out for a trivial 99
England collapsed to a chaotic 157-run defeat at the Emirates Durham ICG as Sri Lanka smoothened the Royal London one-day international series at 1-1.
England, who did just about everything right in an 81-run win at The Oval three days ago, this time they did many things wrong. Especially in an unlucky hunt of 256 for eights, which eventually gathered 99 all out in 26.1 overs, which was their fifth lowest ODI total.
The initial damage was done by Nuwan Kulasekara (three of 15) in a spell of three wickets for one run as England lost four for 10 – and at no following stage. Notwithstanding an attempted rear guard from stand-in captain Eoin Morgan, did they threaten a passable recovery?
What it seemed like was that Morgan, representing for the injured Alastair Cook had this morning won an important toss that let him put Sri Lanka in on a pitch delivering all bowlers sideways movement under cloud cover.
Once England began to bat, it all became even clearer that the efforts of top-scorer Tillakaratne Dilshan (88) and lately Ashan Priyanjan were more important than they first looked.
