*Official* England Tour of Sri Lanka 2018

[trundler]

No idea. But it must be a while since we've lost by 200+. Nice bit of nostalgia by the boys today.

This cracked me up.

 

[wpdavid]

No, I literally can't remember them losing a game while chasing a total in recent times. They've lost a few when they've gone too hard trying to set a total and fallen short.

tbh I completely misread your previous post. Which is why I deleted my previous reply, which was a complete no-sequitor to what you had written.

 

[trundler]

England need a couple more proper batsmen. Your pinch hitting tail can't do much when you're 70-5 chasing 350.

 

[Prince EWS]

Good consolation win for Sri Lanka. When was the last time England failed to chase a total of any kind in ODIs?

Haha it was probably that random game against Scotland this year when McLeod made the big ton and England just failed to chase 370 or so.

 

[Maximas]

Incredibly executed all round performance from SL all things considered, dashing batting, incisive bowling and good catching

unreal

 

[Prince EWS]

England need a couple more proper batsmen. Your pinch hitting tail can't do much when you're 70-5 chasing 350.

They took the piss with the selection in this game, just to give everyone a run. Stokes, Butler and Moeen all usually bat one lower down with Morgan in.

 

[wpdavid]

They took the piss with the selection in this game, just to give everyone a run. Stokes, Butler and Moeen all usually bat one lower down with Morgan in.

Yup. Plus Bairstow is a way better batsman than Hales of course.

 

[trundler]

Oh Morgan! Yeah, completely forgot him. Yeah he's pretty solid.

 

[trundler]

The question is how many accumulators should there be.

 

[wpdavid]

The question is how many accumulators should there be.

Beyond the obvious example of Root, I think there are a few who can tailor their game to the situation. Perhaps increasingly so, judging by the way Stokes and Butler batted against India in the recent tests. I certainly can't think of anyone I'd include instead of the current batsmen.

 

[Bijed]

Bloody hell, robbed by the rain

Seriously, though, even if it wasn't our first-choice XI, fair play to Sri Lanka for basically crushing us. They've improved as the series went on and they deserved this.

Stokes and Ali are wedded together in the team. Neither are good enough frontline bowlers to be part of a 5 man attack. Ali's fortunate in the last few years that the balance they've come up with means he's kind of key to their plans. If you want to drop Stokes (to bring in Hales) then you've probably got to drop Ali too - and play Hales and a seamer instead

Tbf to Ali, this year at least (admittedly I don't have the stats to hand right now) his bowling's been generally quite tidy and he's started picking up wickets more often too. I do often feel we're lucky if we get a few cheap-ish overs out of Stokes, though.

 

[randycricfreak]

Problem with this Sri Lanka team is inconsistency.

CT win vs India, and now this win proves that time and time about this team can come up with good wins.

I really hope this team can become consistent.

We have one of the worst ODI records since the start of 2017.

Hopefully this win against the world no 1 side, will give the required momentum.

Good to see Dickwella, Chandimal and more importantly Mendis coming well...

 

[randycricfreak]

Bloody hell, robbed by the rain

Seriously, though, even if it wasn't our first-choice XI, fair play to Sri Lanka for basically crushing us. They've improved as the series went on and they deserved this.



Tbf to Ali, this year at least (admittedly I don't have the stats to hand right now) his bowling's been generally quite tidy and he's started picking up wickets more often too. I do often feel we're lucky if we get a few cheap-ish overs out of Stokes, though.

Only Morgan and Bairstow wasn't there, and tbh don't think would have made a difference.

I think this was the first choice English bowling lineup. Plunkett, Wood all were part of their XIs in recent times.

 

[Bijed]

Only Morgan and Bairstow wasn't there, and tbh don't think would have made a difference.

I think this was the first choice English bowling lineup. Plunkett, Wood all were part of their XIs in recent times.

Ideally we'd have had Woakes too tbf. But yeah, even with them playing we'd still have lost, just hopefully by less than 219 runs

 

[Bijed]

Eoin Morgan critical after 'extremely poor' England display

Glad to hear Morgan speaking frankly about today's loss. I like his captaincy, but in the past after we've had a bad (generally terrible) game, he's seemed unwilling admit that we've been poor, often just spouting stock 'natural game' lines and even blaming the pitch after we were knocked out of the last Champion's Trophy. But his response to day seems honest, but still measured and sensible. A refreshing change.

 

[BSM]

We really need to get rid of Wood ffs. Swear the only reason he is even around the team is because he bowled one spell of 90mph bowling in the ashes in 2015. Been consistently toothless for a while now, and there's surely better options around, even if you are specifically looking for someone who bowls good pace. His constant presence on England Cricket social media also irks me for some reason; probably because his role as the team clown is the only "value" he is adding to the squad

I mean are our bowling standards really that low where we have to persist with something who has a bowling average nearly at 50? We have Ali bowling 10 overs consistently in games but that's always to a defensive plan, and he also adds great value in his batting. Wood is a pure bowler who can barely take a wicket a game. Can't be settling for that kind of output tbh.

 

[Starfighter]

Good to see England finally getting a hiding, from the generally rubbish SL no less. 219 runs is a huge margin for a DLS decided match.

 

[marc71178]

Only Morgan and Bairstow wasn't there, and tbh don't think would have made a difference.

I think this was the first choice English bowling lineup. Plunkett, Wood all were part of their XIs in recent times.

Nah, that's total bollocks if you think that's a first choice bowling line up.

 

[Woodster]

Disappointing not just to lose but by such a margin. Any talk of this being England’s worst performance ever has to be tempered by the clear and obvious fact this was a dead rubber. I’m not suggesting for one minute they didn’t try or under performed intentionally, but as soon as a series is over as a contest there is invariably a natural drop in intensity and relevance on the remaining games in the series. We are still capable of delivering a one-off poor performance like this, but we really shouldn’t read to much into it.

Nice to hear Morgan’s comments and we rightly so, we shouldn’t just accept a thrashing of this magnitude and brush it under the carpet just because nothing was on it. However, we do need to keep some perspective here.

 

[andmark]

Disappointing not just to lose but by such a margin. Any talk of this being England’s worst performance ever has to be tempered by the clear and obvious fact this was a dead rubber. I’m not suggesting for one minute they didn’t try or under performed intentionally, but as soon as a series is over as a contest there is invariably a natural drop in intensity and relevance on the remaining games in the series. We are still capable of delivering a one-off poor performance like this, but we really shouldn’t read to much into it.

Nice to hear Morgan’s comments and we rightly so, we shouldn’t just accept a thrashing of this magnitude and brush it under the carpet just because nothing was on it. However, we do need to keep some perspective here.

Indeed. It would be the most British thing ever if this match ends up being regarded as some sort of crisis.