Determination vs. desperation
Following its two wins, England wants to nail a semifinal spot against a struggling Sri Lanka
Having defended a modest total of 142 against the
inexperienced Afghanistan, England returns to the Ferozeshah Kotla here
looking to nail a struggling Sri Lanka in their World T20 clash on
Saturday.
Second in the group after two wins from
three outings, England begins as the favourite after its bowlers came
good for the first time in the competition on Wednesday.
Knowing
that Sri Lanka, the defending champion, is a playing far from its best,
England is looking to improve upon its unfavourable head-to-head record
of 2-4.
Nothing has really gone Lanka’s way, whether
in the recent Asia Cup in Dhaka or during its title-defence (save a
none-too-impressive win over Afghanistan) in this competition. No doubt,
it will take a huge effort from the islanders to deny England two more
points, knowing that a defeat on Saturday will mean no getting past the
league stage.
England’s batting came good against
West Indies and South Africa before the bowlers redeemed themselves in
the third match when facing minnows Afghanistan.
Sri
Lanka will draw some hope from how the top-order England batsmen came a
cropper against the Afghan spinners. England needs no reminding that the
quality of spinners in the Sri Lankan line-up is superior to those from
Afghanistan. With this being the last league match for England, Eoin
Morgan’s men have no choice but to look to improve its poor net run-rate
(NRR) so far in the competition. In this group, there is every
possibility of two or more teams ending up with six points each.
In
such a scenario, the NRR will come into play. For the record, at
present, West Indies (0.89) and South Africa (0.85) are way ahead of
England (0.02). Joe Root, the man in form, was candid in his assessment
of the team on Friday.
“We’ve not performed at our
best throughout the competition, which in a way is quite exciting
because we know that’s still to come.
“The really pleasing thing for me is we’re finding ways of winning games of cricket.
“If
we’re being honest, we’ve not done one part of our game consistently
well. At times we’ve bowled extremely well and at times we’ve batted
well. When that comes together we’ll be a very hard side to beat.”
England’s
batsmen can be expected to make amends for their poor showing against
Afghanistan. It remains to be seen how well Sri Lankan spinners bowl to
the Englishmen on the Kotla pitch.
Lanka depends much
on Dinesh Chandimal to get a good start. Experienced campaigners like
Tillakaratne Dilshan and Angelo Mathews have not served the team as well
as expected while the pace bowlers have been make to look ordinary.
Among the spinners, the seasoned left-arm Rangana Herath and young
leg-spinner Jeffery Vandersay are yet to make an impression.
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