After England were knocked out of the ICC Cricket World Cup, a lot of postmortems have been done to find out what went wrong during the defending champions’ campaign. Maheesh Theekshana’s post-match media briefing pretty much summed up what had happened but it hasn’t received much attention.
The Sri Lankan spinner speaking to reporters said that England underestimated Sri Lanka and as a result paid the price.
Throughout the history of World Cups, England have been horrible and one championship in their own backyard make them think that they had won multiple titles. Words like double white ball champions referring to the two titles they won at Lord’s and MCG inside three years makes them believe they are infallible.
Then captain Jos Buttler’s pre series media briefing where he says that his team aren’t defending champions but attacking champions made you wonder whether they are thinking too far ahead of themselves and Theekshana hit the nail on the head.
Not that England have been covering themselves in glory in this competition. They came into the Sri Lankan game having lost three of their four games and that too by quite big margins. England forgot the cardinal rule of taking one game at a time.
As for Sri Lanka, their campaign is very much back on track and if they win three of their remaining four games, they are in with a chance to make it to the semis. Sri Lanka will be kicking themselves that they missed a golden opportunity against Pakistan, where their bowlers were clueless spraying it all over the place.
But what a comeback Lahiru Kumara had against England firing on all cylinders running through their middle order. Kumara’s raw pace can be a problem for best of batters in world cricket, but the problem is that his consistency with accuracy. When he is on the money, he puts the team on top more often than not.
Kumara may have won Man of the Match award, but it was Angelo Mathews, who put Sri Lanka on top. While his first over in his comeback helped Sri Lanka to break the opening wicket stand, the run out of Joe Root put England under pressure.
Mathew’s return has been a godsend to Sri Lanka. Yes, it is his batting that earned him a slot in the side, but the all-round package of the former captain has done wonders for the team. Given his wealth of knowledge and experience, the bowlers and the captain are feeding off him and to not to pick him in the squad in the first place was a no-brainer.
Maheesh Theekshana made life difficult for England although he didn’t pick up many wickets. England seemed to have made up their minds not to attack Theekshana but they ended up playing into his hands as the other bowlers kept the pressure and wickets fell at regular intervals.
Left-armer Dilshan Madushanka’s stocks keep rising as he creates opportunities with the new ball and England were all at sea as he swung the ball threatening to run through the top order. He was very unlucky. Kasun Rajitha is an underrated bowler and he was pumped up accounting for some big wickets and executing the plans so well.
Two early wickets gave England a glimmer of hope but how well Pathum Nissanka and Sadeera Samarawickrama completed the run chase.
Sadeera opening the account driving the first ball he faced from David Willey was worth in gold and there was no looking back from thereon.
England had a formidable bowling unit and Mark Wood in particular constantly clocking over 150kmph was a thorn in the flesh but how well Sadeera and Nissanka saw Sri Lanka through. Both notched up half-centuries and in the end Sri Lanka won with more than 24 overs to spare. This was some beating.
Both batters have been in terrific form with Nissanka scoring four half-centuries in a row and Sadeera making a hundred and two half-centuries. Sri Lanka will be hoping that KJP fires in the remainder of the tournament and if that happens, they are in safe hands.
England now have not beaten Sri Lanka in a World Cup game since 1999. There have been five encounters since 1999 and all have been won by Sri Lanka with big margins.
More than any other event, coming into this tournament, Sri Lanka were vulnerable as England were playing a different brand of cricket, but they have been beaten comprehensively. It was some hammering.
One is reminded of late Michael de Zoysa’s comment lead up to the England game in the 2015 competition. Sri Lanka had a tough schedule. One day they were in New Zealand and next day they had to fly to Australia and cross the Tasman sea again before coming back to Australia.
After Sri Lanka had beaten Bangladesh at MCG, T.M. Dilshan was asked how tough the constant flying was. De Zoysa interrupted and replied, ‘It’s tough but we are okay. Next we are playing England and England is a bye.’ True to form Sri Lanka won by eight wickets in Wellington.
