The English team that has crawled, scraped and half-walked into the quarterfinals has finally been stopped by a very powerful Sri Lanka team [SCORECARD]. The English team, completely exhausted throughout the tournament from a long Australian tour, looked like a shadow of the team they could be and played without much spirit and gave the game up without a fight. A 10 wicket loss is as worse as it can get. Sri Lanka now face the resurgent New Zealanders in the semifinals.
Having won the toss, england started slowly losing early wickets. Trott as usual dug in and along with Eoin Morgan revived and powered England to a decent score of 229. Sri Lanka's bowling was professional with their spinners completely strangling the English batsmen. However their fielding was pathetic and as many as four catches went down. Eoin Morgan must surely be thankful for his Irish background, as he was let off not once but thrice. However the England team, looking fully exhausted and played aimlessly. The perfect example of this is promoting Swann up the order in the power play - who tried a switch hit that went horribly wrong and was caught plumb in front off the bowling of Mendis.
The team had a horrid look and one could see clearly the toll of the long Australian tour and the World Cup. Strauss was unimaginative and like his team looked out of sorts. Strauss however was honest to admit that they didn't have the quality to win this World Cup and said that his team missed their injured players. Now surely his head is on the block and the selectors must be trying to find another captain for the ODI side. England probably now can recuperate, analyze and be better prepared in 4 years time.
Sri Lanka's batting was professional. Their openers put up a brilliant opening stand, sealing the match. Dilshan and Tharanga are now the best opening pair in World Cup history and with this second double century partnership in this World Cup have showed that they truly are class players. Near the end of the match, both the centurions were cramping badly, however the runs they scored would surely relieve that pain.
Sanagakara is hoping for an all subcontinental final. By the looks of this Sri Lankan team, that looks very possible as I don't see New Zealand beating them on Tuesday. However, only time will tell.
Having won the toss, england started slowly losing early wickets. Trott as usual dug in and along with Eoin Morgan revived and powered England to a decent score of 229. Sri Lanka's bowling was professional with their spinners completely strangling the English batsmen. However their fielding was pathetic and as many as four catches went down. Eoin Morgan must surely be thankful for his Irish background, as he was let off not once but thrice. However the England team, looking fully exhausted and played aimlessly. The perfect example of this is promoting Swann up the order in the power play - who tried a switch hit that went horribly wrong and was caught plumb in front off the bowling of Mendis.
The team had a horrid look and one could see clearly the toll of the long Australian tour and the World Cup. Strauss was unimaginative and like his team looked out of sorts. Strauss however was honest to admit that they didn't have the quality to win this World Cup and said that his team missed their injured players. Now surely his head is on the block and the selectors must be trying to find another captain for the ODI side. England probably now can recuperate, analyze and be better prepared in 4 years time.
Sri Lanka's batting was professional. Their openers put up a brilliant opening stand, sealing the match. Dilshan and Tharanga are now the best opening pair in World Cup history and with this second double century partnership in this World Cup have showed that they truly are class players. Near the end of the match, both the centurions were cramping badly, however the runs they scored would surely relieve that pain.
Sanagakara is hoping for an all subcontinental final. By the looks of this Sri Lankan team, that looks very possible as I don't see New Zealand beating them on Tuesday. However, only time will tell.
4 Comments:
I'm not at all surprised that England have gone out. They were pretty luck to land a QF spot to begin with. More surprising is SA losing out to the Kiwis. What a funny old WC this is turning out to be!
The one small negative for Sri Lanka out of this win is the fact that their lower middle order did not get any match practice. Considering that the same lower middle order is regarded as their weakness, New Zealand might look to exploit that.
The last match they played against New Zealand was on 18th - 11 days before the SF. While Mathews got a few runs, Samaraweera and Silva flopped there. Before that, their last match was way back on 10th (where again the middle order flopped).
We saw how Australia looked scratchy when they had had a 15-day break during mid-tournament, because of their match against Sri Lanka being called off. Sri Lanka cannot afford such rustiness in the Semi Finals of the World Cup!
@Sid,
I agree. England departing is not a surprise. However I did think they'd put up a fight. Well now at least they get some well deserved rest.
History repeats itself....So why should this WC be any different?
@Shridar,
SL middle order is always weak and now without any match practice they do look susceptible. However to get over there, you need to get the wickets of the top four batsmen and if NZ can do that early in the innings then they'll probably win the match.
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