At last we saw a really close match between England and Sri Lanka after after a number of one sided matches. Sri Lanka were the firm favourites and as the form side were predicted to thrash England out of site, as they had done in England last summer. England had a new sprint and energy about them in the field, not displayed so far by them in this tournament.
The balling and fielding was much improved but the batting continued to disappoint and follow a similar script, with Vaughan and Joyce departing early. This pair have to fire and time is quickly running out for them. Things looked comfortable for a while with Bell and Pieterson, but the unfortunate run out of Bell lead to yet another batting collapse.
The game seemed to be heading Sri Lankans way until Bopara and Nixon stepped up the pace in the final few overs. The young and impressive Bopara had three runs to win the match from the last ball, but some cunning trickery from Fernando, who ran up but did not release the ball tricked the youngster into showing his shot selection and then he balled the appropriate delivery to clip the stump. It was a great come back game for Fernando and justified his captains backing in balling the crucial final over.
The win sets Sri Lanka well on their way to the semi finals, but England now face a hard task with their next two games against the big two, Australia and South Africa. They are almost must wins for them but they showed that are capable of putting in a good performance and if the batting can improve in line with the balling and fielding, anything is possible.
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