The same old story continued for the visiting Sri Lankan side in their tour of England as they went down by 89 runs in the final T20I to face a whitewash against the top-ranked in the T20I format. After losing the first two matches while batting first, Sri Lankan skipper Kusal Perera decided to chase but that didn’t change their fortunes.
In the absence of Jason Roy and Jos Buttler, it was Dawid Malan who came out to open the innings with Jonny Bairstow. Malan did a commendable job in a position that he is not much familiar with and shared a 105-run stand with Bairstow for the opening wicket.
Both batsmen struck some exceptional shots during their stay which set the foundation for the rest of the batsmen to go berserk in the last stretch of the innings. While Bairstow did take his time, Malan maintained an exceptional strike rate and reached his 2nd T20I fifty opening the batting. Bairstow was dismissed by a well-disguised slower delivery by Isuru Udana in the 12th over but Malan on the other end kept going.
Liam Livingstone also looked in good touch but his wicket opened the floodgates for a collapse which was initiated by a super spell of fast bowling by Dushmantha Chameera. He varied his pace to perfection and reaped rewards in his second spell bagging 4 wickets for just 17 runs. From a position of utter dominance, England could only muster 180 in their allotted 20 overs in a belter of a wicket.
The run-chase was a sorry tale as far as the visitors were concerned. They kept losing wickets at regular intervals and could never really challenge the English score. David Willey and Chris Woakes broke their backbone bagging the two openers Danushka Gunathilaka and Kusal Perera respectively.
Oshada Fernando struggled his way to 19 of 27 deliveries while Niroshan Dickwella and Binura Fernando were the two others who reached double figures. It was an embarrassing scorecard for the Lankans as they surrendered meekly. None of the English bowlers were too threatening but it was some ordinary batting from the visitors which led to their downfall. Willey ended as the pick of the bowlers with three while Sam Curran bagged a couple as the Lankans were skittled out for 91 in the 19th over handing the hosts a commanding 89 runs victory.