Sri Lanka out to retain perfect WC record against England

In 2019, England won the ICC Men’s World Cup final in a nerve-wracking fashion with a dramatic victory over New Zealand at the Lord’s in London. On their road to glory, they had suffered three defeats including one against Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka will be England’s opponent in the 13th edition of the global showpiece tournament now being played across Indian cities. That last World Cup encounter at Leeds had been a lowscoring game.

It saw Sri Lanka defending 233 to win by 20 runs, after Lasith Malinga (4/43), Dhananjaya de Silva (3/32) and Isuru Udana (2/41) exploited the perfect conditions in Headingley to make England falter.

Not to forget the unbeaten 85 by Angelo Mathews and two 40-plus scores from Avishka Fernando (49) and Kusal Mendis (46) which helped Sri Lanka set up a decent target.

That was England’s fourth straight defeat against Sri Lanka at World Cups, as the islanders have enjoyed an unblemished record against the Englishmen since losing at the 1999 tournament held in England.

Come Thursday, the defending champions must rewrite history, not only to end Sri Lanka’s dominance against them in World Cups but, more importantly, to avert an early exit from their title defence campaign.

They may never have dreamt of such a torrid start to their campaign, a team that simultaneously held both the white-ball titles, 50 overs and T20. What ensued was utter misery.

They have lost three of their four games, including a 69-run defeat against Afghanistan which has put their campaign on the line. Sri Lanka, while never a favourite, lost three of their four games and are also in a must-win scenario to clinch a semi-final berth.

While Sri Lanka managed to climb to eighth position following their close five-wicket win over The Netherlands on Saturday, England’s 229-run defeat against South Africa on the same day has left them in the ninth slot.

“It certainly leaves us in a tough position,” said the English Skipper Jos Buttler, following their massive defeat at the hands of the South Africans.

“There’s no room for error from here on in. That’s going to be incredibly tough, but we’ll sit down and go again. That’s all you can do in this situation.”

As admitted by Buttler, England has an extremely tough journey in their quest to defend the title as they must win all remaining five qualifying matches. This is a tall order, given that two of their next five opponents are Australia and hosts India who are unbeaten so far in the tournament.

“With complete honesty, I think it’s obvious that we’re not performing to our best. It’s my job as captain and along with the rest of the team to work out how we can get back to playing that brand of cricket and the style and not just only that, but sort of just playing to our potential and getting back to our best,” he said.

Thus, Thursday’s clash between Sri Lanka and England is crucial for both teams as it will allow the winner to preserve their tournament hopes until they meet their next opponent. The loser will go into their remaining four matches knowing that they are out of contention for the title, even if they win those games. (Champika Fernando in Bengaluru)