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SL-Eng: Inept & Annihilated

Wednesday, November 19 2003

England came back down to earth with a crash as they turned in what is possibly their worst One-Day International performance of all time in Dambulla's Rangiri International Stadium and were duly annihilated by a rampant Sri Lanka.

England won the toss. That was as good as it got. I'm trying my best, but that really is the truth of it. Question Marks remained over Dambulla's new headlights so Vaughan elected to bat first and avoid the worries over their use. It nearly turned out that there wasn't any need to use them anyway.

The Bangladeshi pitches of the last few weeks have been completely lifeless and there must have been something of a culture shock when England met a) movement and b) competent bowling. More-than-competent in fact. England debutant Andy Strauss - in for the wholly unimpressive Vikram Solanki - played and missed at his first and third balls from Chaminda Vaas and fellow new boy Dinusha Fernando suffered a similarly inauspicious start as Marcus Trescothick smashed his first delivery past point.

Yet in his next over, the first England wicket fell. Strauss drove at a ball that came back into him and Fernando picked it out smartly with a dive in his follow through. An unconvincing swipe across the line from Trescothick gained four fortuitous runs off Vaas through fine leg, but the next ball only succeeded in skying a repeat effort to the day's third debutant, Nuwan Kulasekara, who made no mistake.

12/2 and England needed to consolidate - and Michael Vaughan was the next to fail. A defensive, an inside edge, and no more leg stump. Dinusha Fernando on cloud nine and England somewhere outside Milton Keynes. Not long after, Vaas took the key wicket of Andy Flintoff, as he induced the big Lancastrian into driving his slower ball straight to Kumar Sangakkara at cover, and 26/4 was not pretty.

45/7 was even less attractive. Rikki Clarke left a gate comfortably wide enough for Kulasekara to jag one back through into off stump before Ian Blackwell cut the same bowler straight to Tillekeratne Dilshan at point, who took another good catch. Chris Read was the next to go to another superb Sri Lankan catch - the all-round fielding display was exceptional from the entire Sri Lankan side - Mahela Jayawardene diving to take an edged drive at first slip for Upul Chandana's 100th ODI scalp.

Ashley Giles joined Paul Collingwood (31) to add a brief interlude of stability before the Durham man misread a flighted ball from Chandana and only succeeded in guiding it back to the leg-spinner. Richard Johnson lofted Chandana over mid off before being comprehensively bowled by Muralitharan.

England 67/9 and still 17 behind their all-time lowest ODI score (86 vs Australia in the 2001 NatWest Series) but the last stand of James Anderson and Ashley Giles added 19 (tragically, the highest stand of the innings) before Giles, after making a gritty 21, fell to another stunning Sri Lankan piece of fielding as Jayawardene reprised his early feat in the slips to leave Vaas with exceptional figures of 3/15, alongside Fernando's 2/13, Murali's 1/15, Kulasekara's 2/19 and Chandana's 2/23, signs of a brilliant display in the field.

And as if England's nightmare wasn't bad enough already, the Sri Lankan openers tore into the bowling attack with no remorse. Set 89, just 83 balls were needed as Sanath Jayasuriya (46*) and Romesh Kaluwitharana (36*) made England's effort look even more spineless, inept and incompetent. The two Sri Lankans hit 13 fours between and Jayasuriya a typical flat six over point off Rikki Clarke, compared to England's four boundaries.

There was a gulf in class in Bangladesh last week, but there was a bigger gulf in Dambulla today. The series moves on to Colombo on Friday for the first of two floodlit ODIs in the Royal Premadasa Stadium. Sri Lanka are 4/9 compared to England's 13/8. For the particularly sadistic amongst you, James Anderson is 250/1 to be England's top scorer.

England 88 (PD Collingwood 31, AF Giles 21, WPUJC Vaas 3/15, KADM Fernando 2/13, KMDN Kulasekara 2/19, UDU Chandana 2/23, M Muralitharan 1/15)

Sri Lanka 89/0 (ST Jayasuriya 46*, RS Kaluwitharana 36*)

Sri Lanka won by 10 wickets

Sri Lanka lead the 3-ODI series 1-0

CricketWeb Players of the Match: Vaas, Fernando, Kulasekara, Chandana and Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)

Posted by Neil