On a knife-edge

Rain means that England and Sri Lanka go into a 2nd day with the match very evenly poised.

After winning the toss, Marvan Atapattu had no hesitation in putting England into bat, and the day started solidly rather then spectacularly for Vikram Solanki and Marcus Trescothick - the pair adding 29 before Atapattu brought about the breakthrough, throwing the ball to Farveez Maharoof, and the youngster got an edge from Solanki through to Kumar Sanagakkara.

Underfire captain Michael Vaughan came in at 3, but looked shaky, and it came as no surprise when Nuwan Zoysa removed his middle stump and England were 44-2 in the 13th over.

Andrew Strauss continued his recent run of low scores soon after, although it was more poor calling to run a second to third man, and Maharoof's throw was good enough to remove the England man with the third umpire's help.

Maharoof was in inspired form, and was understandably kept on to finish his allocation of overs in the hope of removing one England's 2 dangermen in Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff. That he didn't was testament to some solid restrained batting by the pair, who saw him off with the outstanding figures of 10-1-19-1 - and with Sri Lanka running out of seam bowling options (conditions were such that the very occasionally used Mahela Jayawardene bowled 3 overs) - spin had to be used.

This came in the form of Upal Chandana and Sanath Jayasuriya - but they were nowhere near as difficult to face and had bowled 5 overs between them for 28 runs before the rains came. This was a very frustrating time for England, as the pair had added 48 runs in 13 overs, and with 18 overs to go were just beginning to pick up the rate.

So, weather permitting, they'll be back at the Rose Bowl.

In Sri Lanka's favour, another 10.15 start may see England in very tricky conditions, but in England's favour, they only have 6 overs from the frontline seamers to negotiate, so it'll be very interesting to see who starts out first thing tomorrow - my money is actually on Jayawardene from one end.

A quick reminder that if rain persists and there is no result possible, England will qualify for the semi finals by virtue of their more clinical despatch of Zimbabwe.

Posted by Marc