A brilliant spin bowling performance, on an admittedly helpful pitch, set Sri Lanka up for only their third ever win on English soil, and their first against England, having previously beaten Pakistan in the 2009 and 2017 World Cups.
The hybrid pitch at Chelmsford, which contains threads of plastic sewn into the surface to give the natural grass a helping hand, offered just enough grip and turn to bamboozle England’s batters, who collapsed into a black hole of embarrassment. It could have been even worse too, if only Sri Lanka could have fielded quite as well as they bowled – Dani Gibson and Amy Jones were both dropped, and Charlie Dean should have been run out on 7 after a horrible mix-up with Gibson. Honestly… England were lucky to get to 100.
Dean did at least capitalise on her good fortune – she took on the bowling and hit 34 off 26 balls. There is definitely more to come from Dean with the bat, and she showed today that she can go at a decent strike rate – this was her highest strike rate in an innings for England, and it put the rest of the performance in a little perspective.
We’ve long thought that the problem with Jon-ball (like it’s male counterpart, Baz-ball) was that it was always going to implode at some point, but it didn’t even do that today – batters weren’t being caught bravely on the boundary, but meekly on the ring – England collapsed not with a bang, but with a whimper.
It goes without saying that 104 barely registers against a “typical” score in T20 internationals between the ICC Championship sides these days – this was England’s worst day out against anyone but Australia in more than 10 years, during which time T20 cricket has undergone an unrecognisable transformation, with 138 being par these days.
England were then forced to play the role of spectators as Chamari Athapaththu took charge – 55 runs at a strike rate of 177 , with eight 4s, two 6s. It’s not often you see the ball literally hit out of the ground these days. Athapaththu did it not once, but twice – a smashing performance in every sense!
That 67-run powerplay really settled the game – with 6 overs done, the required rate was less than 3 an over, and Sri Lanka knew they could just wait for the bad balls… which… well… talking of…
England really didn’t help themselves by selecting Issy Wong, who they know has issues with her run-up, and then asking her to bowl two overs when they were defending a very low total. Everyone who has seen Wong play in domestic cricket in England this year knows she isn’t right – she has been reduced to a bit-part role at Sparks, and she was dropped by Birmingham Phoenix, with Phoenix and New Zealand coach Ben Sawyer proclaiming that he was going to fix her. Well… he didn’t. She began with a front-foot no-ball… then bowled another two balls later… then another… then a wide, as the over went for 12 freebies.
Heather Knight then brought Wong on again at the end, almost as if she was trying to complete her humiliation, and sure enough she conceded another 12 as Vishmi Gunaratne treated her with the disdain her performance honestly deserved. With the WBBL draft tomorrow, Wong could not have picked a worse time to have a match like this; but I’m going to say it – if anyone picks her, England should not let her go. She needs to go back to the drawing board, and she can’t do that jetting around the globe in franchise cricket. She won’t like it, but it’s surely her last chance to save her career, rather than burning out at 21.
By the end, Fortress Chelmsford had been reduced to rubble, with the crowd openly jeering a visibly embarrassed England, most of whom looked like they wanted to follow those 6s from Chamari – out of the ground and far away.
Odds are that England will still win the series in Derby next week, but they have learned a bitter lesson here today. England treated these games as warm-ups – a chance to give players time in the middle. They underestimated Sri Lanka, and it came back to bite them. Hard.
CRICKETher 
Yes, the fodder bit back.
Well ‘bit’ might be an understatement. England have only lost 2 T20s (and they’ve played about 190) inside the 13.2 overs it took Sri Lanka to win and these were against Australia (11.3 overs) and New Zealand (11.5 overs). A remarkable slaughter by Sri Lanka.
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I think England’s worst nightmares all happened at once here. With the bat, the senior players didn’t turn up; the young guns didn’t last long, and not only were we losing wickets but not scoring fast runs either. Then Jon Lewis’s dodgy T20 selections came home to roost. No Beaumont, no Nat Sciver-Brunt when England really did need them. Bowling pace when spin was clearly the answer. And the folly of fielding a bowler in Wong who HAS clearly lost her run-up and thus lacking an extra spinner to replace Ecclestone. Wong’s 2 overs were pure pain really. And top it all off we had no answer to Athapaththu when she’s the main player we need an answer to. If you find Sanjeewani’s little laughs behind the stumps annoying (which I do), this was not the game for you because she had the last laugh which was biggest of all.
This was the most humiliating defeat inflicted by a team other than Australia that I can remember. Let’s face it, England were absolutely tonked by a far superior team today. Dreadful performance from coach and players. Having said that the players should not be jeered, I would never do that.
I’m not confident that England will win the series now but surely they have to improve on this. We all knew the T20 squad had some bad selections and it’s come back to bite Lewis. Gone are the days we can field weakened teams and expect to win just like that. SL were too good and too wise for that and too wise for Knight and Lewis!
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Selection of Issy Wong, not in any form at all, Freya Kemp an injured bowler who is a “batter” who cannot score runs, and Marika Gaur “to see if she can play international cricket” seems a bit odd. What about the other, fully fit players in or just outside the squad who could take their places?? How must they feel? Finally, licence to the likes of Alice Capsey to go gung ho is that good advice for a 19 year old, albeit she is a talent.
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It is a strange selection process for an international team when:
A player/ bowler is included who needs to work on her run up and gets smashed probably destroying her confidence further.
An all rounder who cannot bowl and is included as a batter but scores next to no runs.
A young bowler who is included to see if she can play international cricket ?? Seems strange!
Finally, a young batter to go big regardless of the situation? Surely adapt to the situation?
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Bit of a shock to the system and we’ll see how the team responds.
I think the squad selection was/is fine. Would have preferred to see Dunkley in there but if she wants a rest then that’s fine. With the sudden increase in franchise cricket in the women’s game it is probably unrealistic to think that minor bilateral series won’t be used as opportunities to give in-demand players a bit of rest. So far this year, Dunkley has played a World Cup, the WPL, Fairbreak, a bit of domestic cricket, the Ashes, the Hundred and will be off to the WBBL in a month or so.
Seperately, England need to find successors to their aging batting core and they won’t do that without resting that aging batting core occasionally. Frankly, if you’re not going to use a home series against Sri Lanka to give young players a run out then you’re never going to give young players a run out. The Nightmare in Chelmsford suggests England may have leant a little far towards youth this time but these things happen. I don’t imagine with the relaxed environment around the team these days it will prove terminal to anyone’s confidence.
And the positive is that the series is very much alive now and England are under pressure. Knight and others have spoken of this before, the difficulty of recreating those intense situations that we only tend to encounter in semi-finals or against Australia. I fully expected this series to be as uncompetitive as SA last summer or NZ in late 2021, perhaps worse. Now I’m really excited for Wednesday!
Anyway, I’m sure everything will be fine. And if not, I’m sure it will be fine after that.
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Apologies for double whammy! Submissions issues!!
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