***England vs Sri Lanka***Twenty20 Live

The only Twenty20 match
England v Sri Lanka, Bristol,2.30pm


Team news as per cricinfo....

A new beginning for England, but the team will have a familiar look to it nonetheless. The forgotten men of England's World Twenty20 triumph, Craig Kieswetter and Michael Lumb, are expected to be restored to the top of the order, with Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan, Luke Wright and Graeme Swann joining Broad among the survivors of that triumph. The changes include Collingwood's experience making way for Ian Bell's expertise, while Samit Patel takes on the spinning allrounder role vacated by Michael Yardy.

England (probable) 1 Craig Kieswetter (wk), 2 Michael Lumb, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Eoin Morgan, 5 Ian Bell, 6 Luke Wright, 7 Samit Patel, 8 Graeme Swann, 9 Stuart Broad (capt), 10 Chris Woakes, 11 Jade Dernbach.

Still no Tillakaratne Dilshan for Sri Lanka. His squashed thumb, courtesy Chris Tremlett, is taking a long time to heal. Mahela Jayawardene moves up to the top of the order, from where he hopes to kickstart a tour in which he's been troublingly short of runs. Angelo Mathews, another talent who was sorely missed in the Test series, will slot into the middle order if he comes through a fitness test tomorrow morning.

Sri Lanka (probable) 1 Sanath Jayasuriya, 2 Mahela Jayawardene, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 4 Dinesh Chandimal, 5 Thilina Kandamby (capt), 6 Angelo Mathews, 7 Jeevan Mendis, 8 Nuwan Kulasekera, 9 Suranga Lakmal, 10 Suraj Randiv, 11 Lasith Malinga,

Pitch and conditions

With a day to go until the match there's a bit of grass on the surface to encourage the seamers, with the prospect of overnight rain to keep things fresh. The match itself is scheduled to be dry.


Preview link...
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-sri-lanka-2011/content/story/520644.html



Your take on the match......

Come on England!

Lasith 'the toe cruncher' Malinga is back....

SL won the toss and will bowl..

Sri Lanka have won the toss and will field first. Bopara is in Ian Bell is the man left out. I'd rather have seen Luke Wright shunted out for Bopara oh well.

Actual Teams:

England: S Broad, E Morgan, R Bopara, J Dernbach, C Kieswetter (wkt), M Lumb, S Patel, K Pietersen, G Swann, C Woakes, L Wright.

Sri Lanka: ST Jayasuriya, DPMD Jayawardene, KC Sangakkara†, AD Mathews, SHT Kandamby*, BMAJ Mendis, KMDN Kulasekara, NLTC Perera, SL Malinga, S Randiv, RAS Lakmal

Kieswetter instead of Davies? Lumb instead of Bell? Ppphht.

Afternoon lads, hows the cricket been so far?

Morgan on the march

Morgan on fire.... 2 6's

Morgan gone now, a well played 47

KP gone now, England still in a good position

England starting to struggle here

Over 6 overs of dot balls which is unacceptable really. 160 - 170 could have been reached if the england bats could knock or nurdle it around as well as play the big boundary shots.

Too many of the batsmen didn't look in good form or couldn't handle the spinners.

Disappointing stuff as I expect anyone picked now to have the skills for this level.

In my view it's a tough one to defend this target.

Its not a big enough target to defend in all honesty

Right old carve -up here eh? Easy for Sri Lanka. Too easy.

Funny - we hear a lot about picking "specialists" for 20/20 , but England went into this match with only 2 true international class batsmen (3 if we allow Bopara) and guess what : those two shred the bowling only for the rest of the order to fail miserably. (And Bopara the only other player to score even 10)

Seems class has something to do with it even in these short games...

Who needs a Patel (fat or lean)?

All too easy in the end for Sri Lanka. Massive dissappointment batting wise

alfie wrote:Right old carve -up here eh? Easy for Sri Lanka. Too easy.

Funny - we hear a lot about picking "specialists" for 20/20 , but England went into this match with only 2 true international class batsmen (3 if we allow Bopara) and guess what : those two shred the bowling only for the rest of the order to fail miserably. (And Bopara the only other player to score even 10)

Seems class has something to do with it even in these short games...

So you admit Broad isn't world class? I always thought he is only in the team because of his daddy.

Why is Luke Wright in the side?
If he's not going to bowl replace him with a proper batsman.
Also, while Woakes is an outstanding talent IMO, t20 is not his best format.

Prince of Wales - I bow to your superior knowledge of people only getting positions because of their parents

Well Done SL

England

Why was bell not picked when he is in the form of his life? The Sri Lankan batsmen demonstrated today that placement and run accumulation has its place in the twenty20 format. England really need to sort out a strategy for the limited overs formats and stick to it, coz at the moment they seem to change strategy every series.

Lumb, Patel, Wright and Dernbach are not international T20 class. Dernbach will be in the future but until then we need changes. Draft in Rashid, Anderson, Bell and Collingwood!

One thing I did notice was that only five players out of the 13 that batted today looked comfortable at the crease. Coincidently these five (two English and 3 Sri Lankan) were all deemed good enough to play in the test series. Maybe England should look at playing more of the test team in the shorter formats. Obviously there should be room for specialists in the shorter formats, but I think a greater balance has to be achieved by the selectors. For example who is better Lumb or Bell? Yes, Lumb might occaisionally produce a flying start, but Bell would surely produce on a more consistent basis. Likewise on the bowling front Tremlett and Anderson would surely be more potent than Dernbach and Woakes were today.

I've been out but following this today.

SL are far superior to us in the short forms. Looks like another painful summer outside of the tests for England.

First comment on the tv today was 'they've dropped Bell their best player ???'

Now if Bell had come in at the fall of Morgans wicket maybe England might have stayed on course for 170. No guarantee of victory but a tougher target for SL. So an embarrassing day for new capt broad.

I think we are playing poor cricket against SL too often. The next series is an opportunity to change that by hopefully having better tactics and the choice of players to make them work.

Duty281 wrote:Lumb, Patel, Wright and Dernbach are not international T20 class. Dernbach will be in the future but until then we need changes. Draft in Rashid, Anderson, Bell and Collingwood!

Bell for Lumb perhaps, and Taylor, or Buttler, or Hales, or someone else (anyone else ) for Wright.
Patel and Dernbach should be perservered with IMO.

I may be a biased Surrey fan, but I don't see what Dernbach did wrong.

The only wicket, relatively economical and showcased his variations that worked well.

The wides were a little disappointing, but he was clearly the best seamer on show.

Poor performance today, but what do we think the ODI team will be on the basis of today's match? The squad is:

England NatWest Series squad (v Sri Lanka): AN Cook (Captain, Essex), JM Anderson (Lancashire), IR Bell (Warwickshire), RS Bopara (Essex), SCJ Broad (Nottinghamshire), JW Dernbach (Surrey), ST Finn (Middlesex), C Kieswetter (Somerset), EJG Morgan (Middlesex), SR Patel (Nottinghamshire), KP Pietersen (Surrey), GP Swann (Nottinghamshire), IJL Trott (Warwickshire), CR Woakes (Warwickshire).

I would go with:
Cook (C)
Bell
Trott
Pietersen
Morgan
Kieswetter (wk)
Patel
Woakes
Broad
Swann
Dernbach

I think the test class top 5 is necessary, while Kieswetter, Patel and Woakes can come in and give it a slog.

Broad isn't playing well at the moment, I wouldn't have him in my test team. I would give him a couple of ODIs to try and prove his form, and if he can't I'd look to bring in Finn or Anderson.