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There’s not a great deal to write about England’s loss in the first one-day international against Sri Lanka yesterday.
This is partly because it’s a very ho-hum one-day series, coming about 20 minutes after the Twenty20 World Cup, which itself was hot on the heels of a seven match one-day series against India, which was overlong despite the quality of those matches.
It’s partly because when Sri Lanka play England in one-day cricket, they tend to annihilate them. But mostly not a great deal happened.
Phil Mustard made his debut and kept well and thrashed a few quick runs. Graeme Swann batted and bowled with determination on his first international outing for a good few years. Mahela Jayawardene batted smoothly, as you would expect from one of the top five (top three?) batsmen in the world.
Farveez Maharoof’s was probably the stand-out performance. His four wickets were England’s entire top order.
Probably the most notable happening was a non-happening. We’re not sure, but we don’t think that Paul Collingwood said that England were a young side and that they’d learn from this defeat. This is either welcome respite from this tired blanditude, or it’s seriously worrying as England’s younger players have opted to stop learning.
Sri Lanka v England, first one-day international at Dambulla
Sri Lanka 269-7 (Mahela Jayawardene 66)
England 150 (Farveez Maharoof 4-31)
