Intense Sangakkara Secured Victory for Lanka It was a do or die encounter for Sri Lanka and their ace batsman Kumar Sangakkara delivered a knock out punch to secure a much needed victory. England felt clueless and need to re-think their strategy of team selection. Steven Finn is 3rd ranked ICC Bowler and best among English bowlers and yet he does not feature in playing XI of England. It is so unfortunate that England is giving priority to Bresnan and Bopara in place of match winning bowlers such as Finn. With this tactics, opposition has to just survive early overs from Anderson-Broad and few overs from Swann, that is exactly what Sri Lanka did and then rest of the overs were there for their batsman to hit. Earlier Sri Lanka won the toss and selected the correct playing XI. They realized that Perera is not getting utilized as batsman or bowler and they went for genuine bowler, Kulasekara whose all rounder skills actually helped them secure the victory. Kulasekara was very accurate early on along with Malinga. They did not take the wickets but they were very economical. Eranga came as first change and stuck early and removed Bell. Both Cook and Bell had a strike rate of below 70 but thank fully Trott get going from the first ball. Trott and Root recovered the slow strike rate and put England in a good position of over 200 runs in 40th over. With 8 wickets in hand 80-90 runs were expected from England. Difference in the middle overs was also R.Herath who continues to impress with his slow left arm and took vital two wickets, removing Cook and Trott. Dilshan dropped three catches and particularly of Root in the bowling of Malinga costed them few more runs. Mathews ever since became Captain, is utilizing himself less as bowler and batsman. He bowled only 6 overs and did not came out to bat when situation demanded him to be there. England were close to 250 runs in 45th over, and were expected to reach 300 but 46th and 47th over changed the complexion of the game. Malinga bowled 46th over and removed Root and Morgan and next over Kulasekara removed Buttler. In second consecutive game in champions trophy both Morgan and Buttler whom England rely a lot in depth overs batting have failed. Because of their failure with bat and continued selection of Ravi Bopara gets justification as he again delivered almost a match winning knock of 13 balls 33 runs with 28 runs coming in last over. At one point Sri Lanka looked in control but that last over of 28 runs from Eranga by Bopara changed the game in the favor of England. Mathews at the end of the inning gave a huddle pep talk which motivated Sri Lankan batsman to do well, particularly their experienced players. Perera got out early in the bowling of Anderson because of a pressure of big score to chase. Dilshan was also struggling with the bat early on but Sangakkara was in sublime touch. Sangakkara also dropped a catch in the bowling of Malinga of Root, which probably gave him much needed motivation and intensity to do well during batting. Sangakkara was in complete control, hitting the ball all over the park but great touch and timing. England were defensive in their tactics and after first 10 over of mandatory power play, gave the ball to Root to finish fifth bowler quota early. Root’s easy and slow bowling gave Dilshan much needed space to work with and he hit him for a six as well. Bresnan-Root’s combination was easy for Dilshan-Sangakkara to get settled in and score freely. Swann was brought in and he delivered immediately with the wicket of Dilshan. Wicket of Dilshan brought experienced Jayawardene at crease. Jayawardene-Sangakkara has experience of over 40,000 international runs and with good batting condition, sun out, ball not swinging, it was all in their favor. Cook brought Broad back in attack to take wickets but Jayawardene danced down the track and hit him for a straight six. Sangakkara kept going at the other end and England were looking clue less. Had England selected Finn, they would have had one more strike bowler in the middle overs but unfortunately they had to deal with overs from Root, Bopara and Swann. Swann was fantastic in his first spell, giving hardly anything away but other end leaked too many runs. With Over 100 runs required in 15 overs, Anderson came out to bowl in power play and got rid of Jayawardene. A.Mathews send in a night watchmen style Pinch Hitter Kulasekara to hit over the top during power play and that move worked out brilliantly. Kulasekara did struggle in the power play but he got going eventually and hit 5 boundaries and 3 sixes. He got plenty of support and guidance from in form Kumar Sangakkara who scored match winning century and remained not out for 134 runs. None of the English bowlers looked in control because of lack of swing and absence of Finn felt much needed. When it mattered the most, Sri Lankan experience trio of Dilshan-Sangakkara-Jayawardene arrived and secured a victory for them. They still have to win against Australia to qualify while England must be hoping some sort of magic against New Zealand who defeated them in 3 match ODI Series prior to Champions trophy.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:04:50 +0000
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