England closes in on World Cup exit with Sri Lanka

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England closes in on World Cup exit with Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka handed dismal England a thrashing by eight wickets in an eight-wicket victory in Bangalore on Thursday, forcing the defending World Cup champions to the verge of elimination at the hands of Sri Lanka.

There was no doubt that Sri Lanka had won this game for the second time in five games.

In spite of this, England has now suffered four defeats and just one victory in the last four matches they have played and they need to win their remaining four games if they are to have any chance of reaching the semi-finals.

As Sri Lanka were chasing just 157 for victory, the in-form Pathum Nissanka and Sadeera Samarawickrama contributed to Sri Lanka reaching 160-2 with 146 balls to spare.

With seven fours and two sixes, Nissanka scored an undefeated 77 off 83 balls, his fourth successive fifty at the tournament.

Against Pakistan, Samarawickrama made 108 runs from 54 balls while scoring seven fours and a six in the win against the Netherlands, following his 108 against Pakistan and his 91 against their opponents.

As a captain, you feel that a lot, as it’s incredibly tough, an incredibly disappointing tournament. It’s a tough feeling to feel, says England captain Jos Buttler.

The boys and I feel very disappointed that we have not given a good account of ourselves and have fallen short of our best performance by a very long way. I am deeply disappointed for myself and all of us.”

A follow-up to what he said is: “We’re not doing everything that we should; if there is one golden nugget that we’re leaving out, then we’ll do that.”

Even though England’s top-scorer Ben Stokes led the way with 43, he did not manage to perform one of his trademark rescue missions as Sri Lanka smashed their rivals in just 33.2 overs, as they earned a three-wicket victory.

By the seventh over, England were 45-0, after winning the toss and electing to bat.

A four-time World Cup appearance for Mathews, who replaced Matheesha Pathirana after initially being omitted from the squad.

Earlier, the 36-year-old had Dawid Malan caught behind for 28 runs, his first ODI catch since March 2020, as the opener had made 28 runs before he was bowled by the 36-year-old.

Matthews is back in action

It was also Mathews who snatched a wicket from the recalled Moeen Ali (15) after the latter was run-out for three runs by Root (three).

During the interval, Kasun Rajitha’s first wicket of the match was taken by opener Jonny Bairstow after he made 30 from 31 balls.

The two players who fell to fast bowler Lahiru Kumara, the man of the match, were Buttler, with eight runs to his name, and Liam Livingstone, with just one to his name.

In reference to Kumara’s performance, she said, “I am very happy with it, I have worked really hard for it.

As an experienced player, Angelo brings a lot to the table. It was a pleasure to have him back.”

With England on 123-7 in the 26th over of their World Cup innings, Chris Woakes’ poor performance continued when he was bowled for nought by Rajitha.

As soon as Woakes returned from the 229-run rout at the hands of South Africa, Sadeera Samarawickrama just clung onto a low catch taken at point by Woakes to capture his return in just four balls.

Despite Stokes’ suggestion that the catch was not clean from the non-striker’s end, the batsman was given out after a review was conducted.

It seemed that England’s only hope of survival rested with Stokes once Woakes had been removed, but Stokes was bowled by substitute fielder Dushan Hemantha on 43 when he was holed out by Kumara for 43 runs.

The English team slumped to 137-8 after Stokes scored 73 runs off 73 balls, scoring six fours along the way.

Kusal Mendis caught Rashid offside when he spotted that he had wandered far down the pitch and ran him out in comical fashion as a result.

Maheesh Theekshana bowled Mark Wood for five runs to finish things off for the visitors.

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