Sri Lanka teach England a lesson

 As expected Sri Lanka took the upper-hand and made a terrible mismatch of the first one-day cricket international against England with a resounding victory here in Dambulla yesterday.



The defeat only extended England’s barren run of not being able to win a single one-day international in Sri Lanka for 25 years since triumphing in a contest way back in 1982.



England came nowhere near to matching the home team and even a simple performance by the Sri Lankans was enough for them to take cover and offer no resistance in the overall context of the game save some lusty blows from debut maker and opener Phil Mustard in the face of a 270 target.



It took just one Sri Lankan bowler Fervez Maharoof to single-handedly throw the Englishmen out of the game as he accounted for the top four wickets while the rest of the batsmen fought a losing battle.



Maharoof the eventual man of the match said he relished the challenge of being introduced to the attack when Mustard was beginning to savour the bowling. “I was geared up and ready to go after them (England) and was quite happy to get the ball into my hands”, said Maharoof.



In the end it seemed anyone could have plundered wickets as England collapsed for just 150 runs with fifteen overs left in the bag.



England captain Paul Collingwood acknowledged that the start of the five-match series was unexpected but claimed it had taught them a lesson for the rest of the series.



“It was an eye-opener for us. The way they disguised the slow balls made it hard for us and this is something we have to look at. We believe we could still come back”, said Collingwood.



Except for some catches England got nothing right on the day as the Sri Lankans tuned up for the five-match series on a refreshing note after skipper Mahela Jayawardena decided to bat first winning the toss.



Openers Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga laid the foundation for what eventually became an unreachable target for England by scoring almost at will. The two, followed by Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara, had more runs for the taking and perhaps squandered the occasion as they offered some easy catches to lose their wickets.