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Mahela’s ton
allows SL to crush England for the fourth time |
June 28, 2006 (Click to see the
Scorecard)
 Sri
Lanka kept their domination over England with a
comfortable 33-run victory in the 4th ODI at Old
Trafford. The England boys with this fourth
straight defeat in the series are in complete
disarray and there are going to be some drastic
changes that could occur in their One Day
Cricket very soon. It was Mahela Jayawardene,
the Sri Lankan Skipper who dazzled with his
second consecutive century to help Sri Lanka
post a massive 318 on the board to almost bat
out England out of the equation.
The Sri Lankan Innings
The track at Old Trafford had some good pace and
bounce for the quicks and the conditions were
very much overcast. Despite all that the Sri
Lankan team which has become a confident unit
elected to bat first after their Skipper had
rightly called Heads. Sri Lanka retained the
same team and England made as many as four
changes with Pietersen and Collingwood out with
injuries and in their place came debutant
Alastair Cook and Vikram Solanki. Sajid Mahmood
and Alex Loudon also missed out to give way to
Tim Bresnan and Kabir Ali.
The start was intimidating from Steve Harmison
who had got the ball to bounce awkwardly. But
Sri Lankan batsmen cashed in at the other end
where Kabir Ali was bowling. Jayasuriya cut
loose whenever the ball was there in his slot
but he got out playing one of his most
productive shots. It was the slash over point
for six for which he had gone as Harmison bowled
it full and wide; Jayasuriya for once found the
fielder at thirdman, Jamie Dalrymple who took
that flat hit which could have headed for a six.
Jayasuriya made just 14 but that gave the
initial momentum which was carried on by
Tharanga and Jayawardene. Both the batsmen took
the aerial route as they found that the English
bowlers were succumbing to the pressure of
performing well. On top of that, Ian Bell at
squareleg had dropped Jayawardene when he was on
7. England took the second powerplay in the 11th
over and by the end of the two powerplay blocks,
Sri Lanka smashed 120 on the board. That
resulted in Strauss holding back the 3rd
Powerplay, but that didn’t provide any better
results as there was no one who could keep the
runs down from the two strokeplayers. England
finally got lucky in the 25th over when Tharanga
got out looking to clear covers off Dalrymple’s
offbreak. Tharanga was out for a well paced 60
which came in 80 balls with the help of 5 fours.
Strauss after this wicket took the 3rd Powerplay
and brought back his pacers and Steve Harmison
produced a snorter of a delivery to get
Sangakkara edging behind. It started to rain
after sometime in the 31st over and the players
had to head back to the pavilion but were soon
back in action as the weather cleared.
England got things under their control after the
break as they got the wickets of Dilshan and
Arnold both playing bad shots. Sri Lanka all of
a sudden slipped to 214 for 5 in the 36th over
and it needed Jayawardene to stay the distance
to take Sri Lanka to more than 300. But
Jayawardene got out soon after reaching his
hundred through a soft dismissal. The Sri Lankan
skipper was early in his flick to get a leading
edge straight to the bowler Dalrymple.
Jayawardene had scored exactly 100 and he played
just 83 balls and got them with the help of 9
fours. Sri Lanka at 220 for 6 in the 37th over
were looking in a bad shape of getting bowled
out inside the 50 overs. But Maharoof and Vaas
teamed up to bat sensibly to add another 30 runs
and most importantly batted for almost 7 overs.
After Vaas had gone edging Plunkett behind the
stumps, Malinga Bandara came in the middle to
build up another useful partnership with
Maharoof. The pair went berserk in the last 4
overs to score 50 runs to take Sri Lanka well
over the 300-run mark. It was mediocre bowling
in the death in particular by Kabir Ali who
bowled full tosses which would be seen in club
cricket rather than International Cricket. The
last over from Ali was taken for 20 which was
something Sri Lanka could only dream about!
Maharoof had got two sixes in that last over to
help himself to a half century. In the end, he
remained unbeaten on 58 having batted for 50
balls and Bandara was destructive as well
scoring a 22-ball 28 which also had a six over
long on. Kabir Ali was taken for 77 in his 10
and he was smacked for three sixes in the slog.
Harmison and Dalrymple were the better bowlers
on show taking two wickets each and both did not
go for many runs. England bowlers not only
bowled too many boundary balls but also went for
30 extras which include 21 wides!
The English Chase
England had a new opening combination with Cook
walking in with Trescothick. Their captain
Andrew Strauss decided to drop down the order to
provide the experience in the middle. The two
left handed openers got going after the initial
hiccups and England looked to have got the
fitting start required to chase this huge
target. Cook in particular was like a breath of
fresh air and he batted like a seasoned ODI
batsman who knows how to get the boundaries
during the field restrictions. England’s fifty
came in 8.2 overs and Trescothick who was
looking for a boundary over mid off failed in
clearing the fielder to become the first
casualty. Malinga was the fortunate bowler as
Trescothick played a full blooded shot to get
out for a 44 ball-40 which even had a stunning
six over long off in Fernando’s bowling. Cook
followed his senior partner in the pavilion in
the next over after chopping his attempted drive
off Fernando onto his stumps. He scored an
impressive 39 which had come with the help of 8
hits to the fence. Skipper Andrew Strauss and
Ian Bell then started to build up a partnership
and Sri Lanka meanwhile took the 3rd Powerplay
as well on the trot. Strauss did play some
ferocious cut shots to keep the tempo going but
once the Powerplay was over, Sri Lanka brought
on its spinners Malinga Bandara and Tillakaratne
Dilshan to bowl in tandem. With a few tight
overs from the two spinners, the required run
rate for England shot up and Strauss fell a
victim to that falling under pressure. He tried
to run a wide delivery to thirdman only to play
it to Sangakkara off Dilshan and that was the
end of the 76 run partnership which had come in
90 balls. Strauss got out for a 44-ball 45. Ian
Bell followed his skipper after two balls as he
was unfortunately stumped out. Bell had played
the cut shot off Bandara into the ground and the
hardness of the track made the ball to bounce
and hit Sangakkara’s body to fall back onto the
stumps and at that moment, Bell was out of his
crease! Bell’s innings was slow as he could get
just 30 from the 48 balls he had faced. It got
even worse for England with Solanki going for a
wild slog off Bandara only to miss it and it was
the second stumping of the day for Sangakkara,
this one being a clean one. At 178 for 5 in the
35th over, it was all over for England and the
rest of their innings was just a formality.
The all rounders in the end tried to play some
shots in desperation and they had to eventually
bow down to the monstrous required run rate. It
was another matter that Sri Lanka was almost
neck to neck with what England had scored at
similar stages. In the end, the difference was
the 50 runs scored by Maharoof and Bandara in
the final four overs! Dalrymple had a decent
work out scoring a 33 for himself and Jones,
Bresnan and Plunkett played for the team to
score entertaining cameos. Plunkett in the end
was trying to see if he could single handedly
take England close to the target with his clean
hitting but he had to fall soon for an 18-ball
29 which has two sixes. The damage was done by
Malinga Bandara and Tillakaratne Dilshan in the
middle overs and both the spinners took a couple
of wickets each and had given away less than 50
runs in their 10 overs. England in the end were
bowled out for 285 in the 49th over with
Plunkett’s fight coming to an end through a wild
full toss from Malinga.
Mahela Jayawardene was rightly awarded as the
Man of the Match. Farveez Maharoof might have
scored a half century only but his innings was
as important as Jayawardene’s hundred was,
because of the match situation when he was
batting. England now have to save their face to
avoid a series whitewash at Leeds in the 5th and
final ODI to be played on the 1st of July.
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