ICC World Cup: England to take on Sri Lanka in Bengaluru

In ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, England will take on Sri Lanka at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru today. The match will start at 2 PM.

Yesterday, Australia beat Netherlands by a record margin of 309 runs at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Chasing a  target of 400 runs to win Netherlands were all out for 90 runs in 21 overs.

Earlier, fiery centuries from Glenn Maxwell and David Warner guided Australia to 399 for 8 in stipulated  50 overs. David Warner smashed 104 while Maxwell registered the fastest century in the history of ODI World Cup in 40 balls. He made 106 in 44 balls.

Only three days ago, England were extremely delighted to have got out of Mumbai. The weather there was unforgiving, their opponents South Africa, devastating. Bengaluru offers a cool respite to anyone arriving from the coastal city but the heat is still on for Jos Buttler’s side. They’ve already lost as many games as they did in the entirety of their title-winning campaign in 2019, and their defence of it is on the brink of disintegration just past the midway point of this edition.

Sri Lanka have reached Bengaluru from Lucknow – another city that tests your endurance levels on even a mildly hot day – but the mood in that camp is perhaps a lot less tense. They too have only one win, but that’s their latest result which they’d hope to use as a springboard for the rest of the campaign.

England might not have the time or bandwidth to draw any inference from history, even as it states that Sri Lanka have been unbeatable for them in the last four editions of the men’s 50-over World Cup. Within the confines of the Sri Lankan dressing room, that could be the motivating tool for a squad that has done well in patches in this edition.

The two struggling bottom-half sides, separated only by the decimal point variance of their Net Run Rate, meet on the edge of the World Cup cliff with the hope of clinging on by pushing the other towards the abyss.

Squads:

Sri Lanka Squad: Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Perera, Kusal Mendis(w/c), Sadeera Samarawickrama, Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dushan Hemantha, Chamika Karunaratne, Maheesh Theekshana, Kasun Rajitha, Dilshan Madushanka, Angelo Mathews, Dimuth Karunaratne, Dushmantha Chameera, Lahiru Kumara, Dunith Wellalage

England Squad: Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Jos Buttler(w/c), David Willey, Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Mark Wood, Brydon Carse, Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran