Is England a match for Sri Lanka?

One has to wonder who on earth crowned the English as the world T20 champions last year when Australians were the favorites to win the trophy. It is agreed that England were a tough opposition then. But, yesterday England never showed any signs that a world champion is expected to show. England were no match for Sri Lanka who beat them in every department eventually in the match by 9 wickets. There was no player from the English side whose contribution can be highlighted. Out of the eleven, only three players were able to cross the double digit score with Pietersen and Morgan scoring 47 and 41 respectively.

Adding to the misery, being the home team, England had absolutely no chances to lose the game with players like Morgan, Pietersen and Stuart Broad. As mentioned in my earlier posts, the match was of hardly any consequence with only one game to go. A winner or loser has nothing to take home. But, that should not be a reason for England to relax with 6 of their batsmen scoring single digit scores out of whom two of them got out scoring zero. This can just be considered as a continuation of the dominance of Sri Lanka over England since the quarter-finals of the world cup.

One can go through the scorecard of that quarter-finals match too see the way the Sri Lanka batsmen openers shattered the England bowling by winning the match by 10 wickets with an opening run partnership of 229 runs. Now, though the effect was not that devastating, a 9 wicket win for Sri Lanka over England should definitely make them think much hard about their future in the game. It is fascinating to see the age old Sanath Jayasuriya still wearing the Sri Lankan uniform and scoring in boundaries and scalping two wickets. I guess he is the oldest player to feature in T20 cricket.

Well rather than calling it a guess, it is a fact. Though Jayasuriya's batting had nothing in particular to say, his bowling fetched him 2 wickets from 3 overs giving away runs at a rate of 6.00 runs per over. However, there were the likes of Jayawardane and Sangakkara who could get the job done for Sri Lanka. One can sense the lack of responsibility from the bowlers of the England team who bowled 11 wide deliveries. The Sri Lankan batsmen finished the game in style by grabbing a victory with a boundary. But, England need to re-think about their fortunes i case they need to make their presence felt.