England v Sri Lanka: first ODI – live! | Sport

26th over: England 142-4 (Root 52, Moeen 17) A pull down the ground for one and there’s the milestone: his 34th fifty in this format to go with 16 centuries, so that’s 50 scores above 50 in his 150th match. Very good consistency. And this one was scored at a very good clip. Praveen Jayawickrama is the new bowler with his left-arm darts not hitting the bullseye. Runs from every ball for 7 off the over.

25th over: England 135-4 (Root 49, Moeen 15) First over of the day for Dhananjaya Lakshan, who is not a portmanteau of compatriots Dhananjaya de Silva and Lakshan Sandakan. Root and Moeen get a touch more expansive against the seamer, Moeen playing a crisp swivel-pull to a not very short ball, Root driving well enough to beat cover for two, then square driving down on one knee for one. Boundary riders in this format do mean that a lot of good shots only get a run or two.

Halfway mark, 51 runs to go.

24th over: England 130-4 (Root 45, Moeen 14)

“Greetings from Chicago, USA!” writes Matt McGillen. “The England collapse here calls to mind the World Cup 2019 match vs. Sri Lanka at Headingly. I was in the stands that day, commiserating with fellow fans that Sri Lanka’s feeble effort with the bat was certain to deprive us of an exciting run chase with the mighty England batting lineup. Only to then see England all out for 212, 20 runs short.
No Ben Stokes today to make it close, either. I fear the worst.”

I hope that Young Joe Root, if I may, has soothed your fraying nerves somewhat. He even gets out the pull shot in this Karunaratne over, for one run, after a comedy routine in which one Sri Lankan throw cleared the keeper before a subsequent throw missed the stumps, turning one run into three via two overthrows.

23rd over: England 124-4 (Root 41, Moeen 12) Hasaranga has bowled five overs for 17, good stuff, but don’t balls won’t do it. Wickets required.

22nd over: England 117-4 (Root 37, Moeen 10) Another dropped catch! Joe Root this time, playing a pull shot against Karunaratne that was miles outside his off stump. No way he could have pulled that around to the leg side in control. He gets a big top edge, Chameera runs in from the long leg boundary, and the bowler who had a catch dropped earlier now drops one himself. Diving forward, tricky chance but barely gets a hand on it, the ball going between his hands and into the dirt. Followed by four leg byes off Moeen’s pad.

21st over: England 110-4 (Root 36, Moeen 8) Moeen is happy to block out the first four balls of Hasaranga’s spin, then misses with a cut before driving a single.

20th over: England 109-4 (Root 36, Moeen 7) Fernando keeps them quiet for only two runs, but more importantly for England this batting pair has settled down the worry after a few wickets in quick succession. From here they only need 77 runs and they have 30 overs – 180 deliveries – in which to do it.

19th over: England 107-4 (Root 35, Moeen 6) Hasaranga bowling with lots of loop to Root, looking to lure him into the drive. Root mixes up his footwork between coming forward and going back. Three singles from the over.

18th over: England 104-4 (Root 33, Moeen 5) Binura Fernando is back, his height immediately causing problems with bounce, and Root edges for two! Genuine nick in between the very wide slip and the keeper. Then Fernando goes fuller, gets it swinging into Root’s pad, and convinces Perera to go to DRS. Looked like it was pitching fractionally outside leg, maybe hitting just outside leg too.

And that’s what DRS shows.

Root celebrates with another single run down to third man. He’s 33 from 38 balls and doing it easily.

17th over: England 101-4 (Root 30, Moeen 5) Joe Root is playing well when he’s sweeping well. Gets Hasaranga away fine and picks up three runs, before Moeen edges away a single to raise England’s 100.

16th over: England 91-4 (Root 26, Moeen 4) Chameera goes into his sixth over, Perera desperate to have him add to the two wickets he’s taken so far. Root keeps using deep third for singles. Mo drives nicely through cover but the rope is protected. Five singles from the over, easy done. England only need 90 more to win.

15th over: England 91-4 (Root 23, Moeen 2) Wanindu Hasaranga’s turn now. He’s got runs, he’s got a catch, and Sri Lanka need him to round out the set with some wickets. Not a bad start for the leg-spinner, giving flight against Moeen Ali and then trying the flatter dart at the stumps looking for Joe Root’s pad.

14th over: England 89-4 (Root 22, Moeen 1) All seamers so far today for Sri Lanka, the same three, as Chameera carries on. Moeen opens his account with a glide behind point. Root plays a version that’s a bit stabby, more of a push at the ball. Gets a second run on a misfield.

13th over: England 85-4 (Root 19, Moeen 0) Root manufactures a little bit of calm by driving Karunaratne to the cover boundary for four. That wicket could have made this just about Sri Lanka’s game. Still England’s game for now.

12th over: England 80-4 (Root 14, Moeen 0) And dropped! Nearly two wickets in two balls for Sri Lanka. Moeen comes out, pushes defensively at another good-length ball, it takes the edge high on the bat and goes low to Kusal Perera’s right behind the stumps. He doesn’t pick it up quickly enough, and in the end throws one glove where a sharper keeper would comfortably have caught it with two. The chance vanishes.

Another one down! Perhaps England won’t be romping to this modest target after all? Plenty of batting left but all of it in the all-round category: Moeen, Woakes, Curran, Willey, Rashid. Billings drives at a very wide ball, on the up, the length not there for the shot. Thick outside edge to the gully where the man who batted so well earlier takes the catch.

11th over: England 77-3 (Root 13, Billings 1) Karunaratne, runs to the crease like he’s late for a bus. Billings in one of his sporadic appearances in this England shirt gets off the mark with a pull.

10th over: England 74-3 (Root 11, Billings 0) Root started that over being fed for a classic Root shot, quiet and sensible, off the pads through midwicket for four. But Chameera was the one who profited more from the over in the end.

Not a memorable innings for Morgan. He tries the charge-swat one more time, aiming off side this time like a left-handed Brendon McCullum, minus the bit where the ball flies into the stands. Misses that, stays home to a shorter length ball angling across him. Plays a half this, half that sort of flirt at the line, nicks it through to the Sri Lankan captain who is playing stand-in keeper.

9th over: England 69-2 (Root 6, Morgan 6) Wants to get on, Morgan. Charges down at Karunaratne and plays a real smear across the line and across the turf to the midwicket fence. Bottom hand strong.

8th over: England 64-2 (Root 5, Morgan 2) Having taken the wicket, Fenando enjoys the reward, sending down six dot balls to Morgan. The over is only blemished by a wide, and Morgan’s strong off-drive from the final ball is well saved at mid off to stop any score.

“It seems to me that JB has a perfect opportunity to make a point with the bat today,” wrote Charles Sheldrick earlier before we got underway. “No pressure on the rate, he can play positively but does not have to go mad. England overlooked him for Bracey (didn’t that go well) in the recent Tests. Is this a chance for him to give Silverwood a nudge?”

I think Bairstow may have done that even in his brief stay at the crease. He looked so clean in his striking. We know his best at Test level, it’s really a question of whether Silverwood thinks he’s the coach to help rediscover it.

7th over: England 63-2 (Root 5, Morgan 2) Shall we expect things to slow up a bit here? Root back into the side and generally its most sober member, Morgan fairly light on for runs for a while. They still manage to work four singles while sizing up Karunaratne’s work.

6th over: England 59-2 (Root 3) Binura Fernando looks a great prospect. Swings a yorker in at Bairstow’s boots and even a player in such good touch can only squeeze out a single. Makes Root mistime a cut shot that dribbles for three. Which brings Bairstow back for the sixth ball of the over, and for the first time today he goes too hard at a ball angled across him, chopping it onto his stumps rather than guiding another boundary. A sad end to the entertainment, with 43 from 21 balls.

5th over: England 54-1 (Bairstow 42, Root 0) One ball to Joe Root, and thus ends an 8-ball over that included 13 runs, a wicket, and a leave outside the off stump.

Change of bowling and Chamika Karunaratne has the ball. He’s a different style of right-armer: relatively short, jerky, chest-on, muscling the ball down. Doesn’t get his line though, too far outside off, and the umpire takes toll of one delivery before Bairstow takes toll of the next, with the square cut again.

Even worse, the next ball is an overstep! No ball. Free hit. But Bairstow has lost the strike with a single. Finally Livingstone gets to stop being left quite so far in the dust. He leans back and pounds it over deep midwicket for six. A real heave, but why not make like a sailor.

But why not keep us guessing? Karunaratne gets a bit of bounce, Livingstone tries to demolish the shorter ball, and only splices it gently to mid on.

4th over: England 41-0 (Bairstow 37, Livingstone 3) My year of Livingstone dangerously. He edges the tall left-armer Fernando short of second slip, then plays a thrashing pull shot that draws a single via a dangerous top edge towards square leg. Again Bairstow shows him how it’s done, playing a little pick-up pull shot for six! Into the crowd over deep square. Then a savage cut that should have been another boundary but for a brilliant stop at backward point… but that lets Bairstow keep the strike. He’s 37 off 15 balls!

3rd over: England 31-0 (Bairstow 29, Livingstone 2) Purrrrring! Bairstow warms up with a nice straight drive that Chameera picks up on the bounce in his follow-through, then the batsman delivers on that promise with an even better on-drive, just to the on side of straight, past the stumps for four. Tucks three more across the line to midwicket. Livingstone has been put up the order as a hitter, but is mostly a spectator will Bairstow plays with utter style from the other end. Finally able to hit a ball, Livingstone throw the kitchen sink at width and edges a run to deep third. “Nah, this is how you do it,” says Bairstow, returning to strike to place a sweet cut between two fielders square of the wicket.

2nd over: England 18-0 (Bairstow 17, Livingstone 1) The left-armer Binura Fernando has a bit more success initially, tucking up both the right-handers with a bit of inswing and giving them no room to do anything but tuck singles off their pads. But the bowler can’t sustain the line, and as soon as he offers a sliver of daylight between the line of the ball and off stump, Bairstow punches square as efficiently as earlier for four.

1st over: England 11-0 (Bairstow 11, Livingstone 0) Dushmantha Chameera has the ball, a whippy right-armer with a bit of pace. But he’s not ready for the way that Jonny Bairstow starts. So often in this form of cricket Young Jonny is imperious. Two checked drives from the first two balls, minimum of follow-through, and they both go through the off side for four. Then he pulls three runs over midwicket. Easy.

Attention Brian: while you could try your enter-a-pig-in-a-sheepdog-contest approach by arguing that the Laws don’t say whether a bat can have more than once face, they’ve got you covered on depth and the gauge. Law 5.7.2:

The blade of the bat shall not exceed the following dimensions:
Width: 4.25in / 10.8 cm
Depth: 2.64in / 6.7 cm
Edges: 1.56in / 4.0cm.
Furthermore, it should also be able to pass through a bat gauge as described in Appendix B.8.

I’m totally in agreement about the name, Brian, good suggestion. I suspect it would fall foul of current regulations about the width of an edge, though a mathematician could argue that a triangle has no edge.

As for materials, Andrew, I spent some time with master maker of bats Lachlan Fisher in the Victorian countryside a couple of years ago, and can confirm that the material of choice is still a length of high-grade cane. Intensely strong yet supple and powerful: perhaps there is a reason the New Zealand captain is named after it.

Brian Withington is easing me into my OBO day with this correspondence. “My belated enquiries in response to Andrew Benton’s pressing question (over 24) regarding cricket bat handle materials has led me to an interesting paper called ‘Critical Analysis on The Design and Use of Materials in Cricket Bat Handles’ by Ashish Kumar Katiyar and colleagues of Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University. The paper cites a number of innovations and patents that include the use of various composite materials including carbon fibre that Newbery, GM and Puma have been investigating and variously introducing over the last decade or so.

“Whilst unrelated to choice of handle material, my eye was caught by a reference to a 2011 patent by Ross Weir and Philip Hodgkins concerning a bat with three faces that could be rotated to adjust which struck the ball, although there was no comment about the legality of such a monstrous blade (the Cerberus?).”

If you’re English and you’re just turning on the tube, don’t fret at seeing England wickets – they’re replaying the 2019 World Cup match between these two teams. England 111 for 3 chasing 233. Should be fine.

The visitors have been bowled out in just 42.3 overs, losing three wickets during the power play then 5/15 after getting to 145-3 in decent shape by the 29th over with Hasaranga (54) ticking over nicely through the middle overs. But so much relied upon Perera (73), the wheels falling off when the skipper was the seventh to fall, mid-collapse. Woakes was magnificent – those figures again, 10-5-18-4. He did it early, he did it in the middle, he did it at the end. Willey’s 3/44 was an impressive return after a tough start and Wood did everything right across seven wicketless overs, taking 0/19. Sam Curran bowled with zip and Moeen Ali got himself into the book.

All told, a very good day at the office for the home side, who should have this wrapped up in time to watch England later this afternoon.

For the chase, I’ll leave you with Geoff. Thanks for your company!

Brilliant from Billings to finish with a one-handed pick up charing in from mid-on – he doesn’t break stride, direct hit, superb fielding.

42nd over: Sri Lanka 176-9 (Karunaratne 10, Jayawickrama 4) I’m invested in this Woakes over, wanting him to get this fifth. But it isn’t to be with Jayawickrama flicking through midwicket in a manner that belies his position in this batting line up. It doesn’t diminish from Woakes’ contribution, 10-5-18-4. Beautiful numbers.

They just need to take this tenth, then over to YJB. I believe.

41st over: Sri Lanka 171-9 (Karunaratne 8, Jayawickrama 0) “Hi Adam.” Hello, Robert Ellson. “I like Izzy’s idea of separate stats for those who carry their team alone and would like to suggest they should be called Atherages, with a proposed exchange rate of 38:50.”

This is very good; I’m sending it to Izzy.