Month: September 2023

ENGLAND v SRI LANKA: 2nd T20 – Atha-BAT-hthu

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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.