Sri Lanka fell to a 2-0 test series defeat against England as the team’s poor start to 2021 continues. Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne now has five months to rally his troops and get The Lions back to winning ways.
The Lions’ last victory came in late-February early March in the One Day International series against the West Indies. Sri Lanka won the series 3-0 and looked back to their brilliant best. The joy of winning turned to despair in the T20 clashes again the Windies, however, with Sri Lanka falling to a 2-0 defeat.
The poor run continued in the test series against South Africa. Bookmakers at www.canadasportbetting.ca made South Africa a clear favourite and the Proteas lived up to the hype by winning the first test by an innings and 45 runs before winning the second test by 10 wickets.
“Sri Lanka Cricket Team” by TheCricketer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Poor First Innings Costs Sri Lanka the First test Match
Sri Lanka got off to a terrible start in the first of two tests against England. A superb bowling session by England’s Dom Bees saw him take five wickets for only 30 runs while Stuart Broad took three wickets for a mere 20 runs as Sri Lanka were bowled out for only 135 runs.
England racked up 421 runs in their first innings with Joe Root smashing an incredible 228 from 321 balls. Dilruwan Perera and Lasith Embuldeniya were particularly expensive, costing Sri Lanka 285 runs for seven wickets combined.
A much better batting performance in the second innings saw Sri Lanka reach 359 all out. Lahiru Thirimanne’s 111, his third test century, was the highlight of the innings.
England only needed 76 runs to snatch victory and although they wobbled with Zak Crawley (8), Dominic Sibley (2) and Root (1) leaving England 14-3, an unbeaten 35 from Jonny Bairstow and an unbeaten 21 from Dan Lawrence got the job done for the visitors.
Sri Lanka Has No Answer For the In-Form Joe Root
It was another shaky start in the first innings of the second test with Sri Lanka finding themselves 7-2 after only 4.5 overs following the dismissals of Kusal Perera (6) and Oshada Fernando (0) but at 12th career test century for Angelo Matthews helped Sri Lanka reach 381 before Jack Leach caught Dilruwan Perera off Tom Curran’s ball to bring the innings to a close.
The English relied heavily on captain Root once again and he reached 186 before being run out. Spin bowler Embuldeniya took seven wickets in the first innings but only had a 3.26 economy due to allowing 137 runs, the majority coming from Root’s bat.
“England Cricket Team” by TheCricketer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Sri Lanka went into their second innings holding a narrow 37 run lead but a battling collapse, and not for the first time, saw them back in the field having only accumulated 126 runs. The fact Embuldeniya top-scored with 40 speaks for itself.
The hosts found themselves 47-5 after only 15.6 overs and the writing was on the wall from that point.
Our visitors never looked in any serious trouble even when Crawley was dismissed for 13 runs, leaving England 17-1 after 4.5 overs. Sibley and Bairstow put up a partnership worth 45 before Bairstow went for 29 following an lbw decision. Kusal Mendis managed to bowl out the dangerous Root to give his side some hope but an unbeaten 56 from Sibley and 46 from Jos Buttler saw England ease to a six wicket victory.
T20 Series Starts June 23
Sri Lanka have plenty of time to prepare themselves for the next visit of England because the three-game T20 series doesn’t start until June 23. This is immediately followed by a three-game ODI series.
They’ll have to be on top of their game because England are ranked firs in the world for T20 cricket with Sri Lanka ranked seventh. It’s a similar story in ODI with England at the top of the pile and Sri Lanka languishing in eighth-place.
