Heavy afternoon showers once again had an impact upon the result of the 4th ODI which England won by 18runs on the Duckworth-Lewis system (see Cricketing 101 below). England had won the toss and on a used, dusty surface with cracks already appearing they took the decision to bowl first. The Sri Lankan innings started well as Dickwella once again showed his talent at the top of the order with a fluent 52. However, the middle overs proved something of a challenge for Sri Lanka and they were indebted to a good finish to their innings lead by Shanaka, Perea and Dananjaya who all scored at a run a ball or better to boost the total to a more than competitive 273.
Upon hearing that England had won the toss and chosen to bowl, I had decided to have a cheeky little bet on Sri Lanka winning (3.75 or 11/4 odds) and on a slow pitch with 273 runs on the board, those were now looking like excellent odds.
England for their part started their chase in relatively sedate fashion and were happy to go along at around a run a ball during the initial Powerplay. They lost Alex Hales to a neat bit of work by Dickwella, this time excelling in his role behind the stumps, and then Jason Roy who was LBW to the smorgasbord bowling of Dananjaya. England were indebted once again to the cool calm heads of Root and Morgan in the middle order who steadied the ship and saw them through to 132-2 after 27 overs when the afternoon storm clouds rolled in and finished the play for the day.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for Sri Lanka
The Good
At 2-0 down in the series with England having won both of those games with relative ease, it would have been easy for Sri Lanka's players to let their heads drop and to have been knocked over here without putting up much of a fight. However, their young side showed a stubborn streak and indicated that if a couple of the senior players can be integrated back into the team and if some of the off-field mismanagement of the nation's cricketing resources can be resolved then there is still hope for them.
Niroshan Dickwella at the age of 25 looks like a long-term banker for the Sri Lankans at the top of the order and as a wicketkeeper. He displayed a fine array of shots all around the ground and was looking increasingly composed at the crease on his way to his 7th ODI half century. Dickwella is now his sides leading run scorer in the series (97 runs) as well as their leading boundary striker (15 in total) with his 4's accounting for a third of all the boundaries struck by this limited Sri Lankan batting line-up.
Alongside Dickwella, Dasun Shanaka has also been a bright spark for Sri Lanka. It's no easy task batting outside the top 5 in white ball cricket. The likelihood is that you will either find yourself coming to the crease with your team deep in trouble and you needing to steady the ship or else the top order will have done their job and you are there for a late smash that could well end with you losing your wicket. Shanaka found himself coming in with his side having lost 2 wickets in 3 balls and with the very real possibility that the whole innings was about to unravel. He showed some excellent ball striking ability by clearing the fence 5 times in his run a ball 66.
In the bowling department, the man to build around is undoubtedly Akila Dananjaya. Cricinfo.com has him listed as an off-break bowler but in yesterday's match he displayed his ability to bowl both finger and wrist spin, turning the ball in and away from batsmen at will and claiming the only 2 wickets to fall in England's innings. Much like my analysis of the importance of wrist spinners in the white ball game, Dananjaya with his ability to spin it both ways will be a crucial weapon for Sri Lanka in the middle overs for some time to come. He also came in at number 8 and scored a breezy 32 from 26 balls to help Sri Lanka to their competitive total - all round he was the best player on the pitch yesterday.
The Bad
The biggest problem for Sri Lanka's batsmen yesterday was that none of them went on to make that really big match-winning score. Dickwella and Chandimal were probably the 2 main culprits in regards getting in, getting set and then getting out. Had one of those 2 played through the middle over period and into at least the last 10 overs of the game then 300 would have been a real possibility and I don't think that England would have chased that, Duckworth-Lewis or otherwise.
Further issues were exposed by the fact that Sri Lanka managed to build 3, 50+ partnerships during their innings but all of them were ended almost immediately after the milestone was passed. You can, of course, give England some credit for being able to break such partnerships but Sri Lanka really need to look at their own psychological approach to the game and realise that making "nice" individual scores and "handy" partnerships will not win them matches, especially against the World's number 1 ranked side - go big or go home! Again, had one of these partnerships really flourished then England would have found themselves in a very difficult position during their chase.
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One area of Sri Lanka's play that is perhaps surprisingly bad is their inability to manoeuvre the spinners. You would expect a side from the sub-continent to be at their best against slow blowing, nudging and nurdling for singles and hitting the bad ball to the boundary. If anything we have seen a role reversal in the way that you'd anticipate the 2 teams to go about playing spin. Sri Lanka's approach is very much what England's used to be - block, block, slog! There is not a huge amount of skill or subtlety to this way of playing and a look back through England's recent past will show that it is largely ineffective. Again, it all boils down to the fact that a couple of handsome looking shots don't win you a game! Hard graft, playing the percentages and making seriously big scores is what will get teams over the line.
The Ugly
It was a shame that the game ended due to rain. While England were in control and probably deserved the DLS win they were far from certain to get to their total had the match gone the full 50overs. The old adage in cricket goes that you should always look at a score and add 2 wickets to it to know how healthy a position you are really in with the bat as that how quickly things can change within a game.
With Root and Morgan seeing the dark clouds building around the mountains in the background they knew the game was likely to be stopped at any moment and they set about doing just enough to keep England ahead on DLS. However, Root did offer Sri Lanka one golden opportunity to snatch a victory in this game when he swept a rank full toss straight to short fine leg. Sri Lanka's celebrations quickly turned to anger as they noticed the square-leg umpire had his arm extended for a no-ball. Protests began as the players initially believed the no-ball was given on height which would certainly have been a cause for argument as it was clearly below the waist. Instead, the call had been made as a result of Sri Lanka having too few men in the fielding circle for that part of the innings. This was a schoolboy error and one that ultimately may have cost Sri Lanka a win that would have kept the series alive.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for England
The Good
It was very much as you were for England in this match. The spinners controlled things magnificently during their spells and by the halfway point of the Sri Lanka innings you felt they may struggle to make even 250. Tom Curran once again looked like he is doing everything in his power to get a place in next summer's World Cup Squad and apart from an expensive final over, Chris Woakes bowled well and looked like a natural leader of England's pace attack.
<grammarly-btn>Batting wise, Roy once again looked in good touch but couldn't quite go on to make the big score and see his team through. There is undoubtedly talent there and as he has aged so has his appreciation for that talent and how to get the best from it. Some commentators around the game are suggesting that he may yet get a call up to the Test side. That'd be another player who has played white ball cricket almost exclusively for the past couple of years being selected for the toughest challenge at red ball level. Beyond the obvious question of whether Roy has the technique to succeed is the inevitable fallout in domestic cricket that we witnessed when Rashid was called up to the Test side in similar circumstances this summer.
The Bad
Critics might say that I'm nitpicking here, England won the game, there 5th ODI victory in a row and sealed the series with a match to spare, what's not to like? However, when you have established yourself as the World's best side it is imperative that you hold yourself to a higher standard and continue to push the limits of your play.
Why did England choose to bowl first after winning the toss on a slow, turning track? Undoubtedly they prefer chasing, something that is true of most teams in the world at the moment. Was it that they wanted practice chasing in these kind of conditions? Again, that has historically been a weakness of England sides and something that could do with sharpening up but if that was the case then it represented a big gamble in a match that had they have lost would have seen the last game become a decider. Was it that Morgan suspected that rain would come in the afternoon and shorten the 2nd innings? Again, something of a risk because in a tropical climate the rain tends to be more localised. It may be tipping it down a couple of miles away and bright and sunny over the ground. As my bet against England suggests, I was not entirely convinced by the decision to bowl first even though it ultimately didn't cost England, it just cost me!
<grammarly-btn>You could argue that England got their selection for this game wrong. They had gone into the first couple of games with 3 spinners in the side and despite my criticism of Liam Dawson who has now left the tour with an injury, they looked a slow bowler short in this game. Indeed Rashid and Moeen had both bowled out their allotted 10 overs at the 32 over mark and it is perhaps no coincidence that Sri Lanka managed to recover from a fairly precarious position to post a useful total once Morgan had run out of spin options. England have the pace options of Wood, Plunkett and Sam Curran on the bench, none of whom have been needed in order to seal the series victory but their only other slow bowling option was part-timer Joe Denly who recently arrived as Dawson's replacement. Denly is so underprepared for the series that he didn't even have a shirt with his name on the back when he came on for some 12th man duties yesterday! Again, it didn't cost them the game yesterday but such errors may do in the future.
The Ugly
Missed chances! Jos Buttler was particularly careless behind the stumps yesterday as he missed a fairly regulation stumping when Dhananjaya De Silva ran down the wicket to his first ball and was beaten on the outside edge by a beautifully drifted delivery from Moeen Ali. Further bumbling in the field from Jos Buttler resulted in a missed run out opportunity which would have seen the back of Shanaka who was also dropped on the fence by Alex Hales. Playing against a decidedly average Sri Lanka team these mistakes didn't cost England but had they been up against a side like India in similar conditions it is likely that they would have been made to pay.
Cricketing 101
Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS)
You don't have to have a degree in statistics and mathematics to enjoy cricket but at times it helps!
The Duckworth–Lewis-Stern system (named after it's creators) is a mathematical equation that provides a target score for the team batting second in a limited overs cricket match. Imagine it a bit like running on a treadmill or with a smartwatch and having set yourself a target to run against based upon your previous times over a certain course. You will either be up to or ahead of that computer generated target or you'll be behind it depending on your performance on the day. DLS is generally accepted to be the most accurate method of setting a target score and is used to calculate the winner of games which are interrupted due to bad weather (as was the case yesterday).
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