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Over the first hour of this match the grass banks on either side of the wicket filled both in number and in belief. Dot balls set off boisterous celebrations, wickets provoked delirium. An increasingly joyous crowd whooped as England’s batters trooped dolefully to and from the square. Mexican waves rippled around a stadium already, and prematurely as it turned out, in full celebration.
England were restricted to just 146 for nine, an innings that revealed a few demons in the pitch and several, it seemed, in their heads. Again England faltered against spin. Jos Buttler remains in a pitiful search of form. Tom Banton was run out seeking a make-believe single, victim of his own scrambled decision-making. Jacob Bethell, rather than giving himself a few moments to get the measure of Maheesh Theekshana, attacked the spinner’s first ball of the game and sent a leading edge to short third. The crowd delighted in every mis-step. Nothing about England’s innings made their total look remotely defendable. They won, in the end, by 51 runs.
Sri Lanka’s openers were rapturously welcomed but then, in the third over, Pathum Nissanka, author in their previous two games of a brilliant, unbeaten century against Australia and a 41-ball 62 against Zimbabwe, lifted a Jofra Archer delivery to deep midwicket and as the side’s totem fell, so too did silence.
It is hard to make much sense of Sri Lanka’s run chase, which careered so rapidly from the routine to the ridiculous. In the next over Kusal Mendis sent a leading edge back into the hands of Will Jacks, who found himself on a hat-trick after Pavan Rathnayake sent his first ball looping to cover, and it was in celebrating this wicket that England for the first time demonstrated genuine belief. Kamil Mishara followed in the fifth over, Dunith Wellalage in the sixth. At the end of the powerplay Sri Lanka were 34 for five and in the mire. By the time Dushan Hemantha was out hit wicket, leaving them 69 for seven, it was as if they were looking for novel ways of getting out. Eventually, after precisely 100 deliveries and with their score a pitiful 95, they had all managed it.
At the halfway stage this result appeared not so much unlikely as downright absurd. For days England had spoken about how they would be bold here, how they would cast off the tentativeness that held them back during an opening group stage in which the possibility of falling to humiliating defeat to associate nations repeatedly turned their strut into a stutter. And yet here they were, pootling. When Sri Lanka needed to roar instead they ummed, and they also erred.
ECB's discrimination warning to Hundred teams
ShowThe ECB has sent an email to every Hundred team reminding them about their obligations regarding potential discrimination and pledging that they, the cricket regulator and if necessary the police, will investigate if they believe discriminatory policies have been put in place as the clubs assemble their squads.
This week each team will be required to submit to the ECB a shortlist of 75 men’s players, permed from the 710 registered for the Hundred auction, on whom they intend to concentrate their efforts when the auction takes place on 12 March. The ECB expects many names to appear on multiple lists, to the extent that the total number of players shortlisted by the eight teams – a list due to be published on Thursday – may only be between 100 and 150. There will be much interest, given rumours that the four teams under Indian ownership will avoid signing Pakistani players, in the identities of those shortlisted.
But the ECB is conscious it might be very hard to prove that discrimination has been involved, particularly given that no Pakistani players were signed by Hundred teams last season, before their changes of ownership were completed, with the two bilateral white-ball series scheduled during the Hundred meaning most of their leading players were unavailable. This year they are due to play two Tests in the West Indies during the Hundred, and start a series against England three days after its conclusion.
In 2024 there were four Pakistani players in the men’s competition, though at the last minute the Pakistan Cricket Board revoked Naseem Shah’s No Objection Certificate – mandatory for all players participating in foreign leagues – after he had been signed by Birmingham Phoenix, citing workload management. The PCB is yet to indicate whether it intends to issue NOCs for this year’s tournament. Simon Burnton
It started, as ever of late, at the top. As an opening partnership Phil Salt and Buttler have often been hugely destructive, but a year ago they averaged 60.07 as a pairing in 15 T20 innings and in 13 since they have averaged 28.69. Only once in their last six games – as it happens against West Indies, the only one England lost – have they managed that many, and in five games at this World Cup they have averaged just 15.5.
Here Buttler’s innings was brief and ugly but Salt remained to produce the only innings of note in the match, eventually dismissed – in part by the outstanding Wellalage, though he fell to one of the 23-year-old’s least impressive deliveries, and in part by his own evident fatigue – having scored 62 off 40 balls. It took until the fourth delivery of the 10th over for any other Englishman to score a boundary. It looked a fairly abject effort at the time, but for all the turn conjured by Wellalage and his colleagues, it was as nothing compared to the twist about to hit this game.
