England against Sri Lanka could be another run feast day and one-sided affair. Despite having just the top 10 teams in the competition, most games in this edition of the World Cup have remained boring due to so many one-sided results.
England, as usual, will be looking to score anything over 350 against Sri Lanka. Their batsmen are consistently scoring runs in all the matches, and they could have been the only side in the tournament to score 300 in each innings had they not bowled first against West Indies. With the kind of batting line they have, even 400 is very much possible against the Lankans.
Sri Lanka with 4 points are at number 6, thanks to two washout games, else they would have been sitting just above Afghanistan in the points table. Their star players are going with the worst form of their career, and that has hampered their chances against the top teams of the tournament. Sri Lanka has to win this game to keep their hopes intact for reaching the semis. A loss here would be the end of the road for them in this competition.
The weather is predicted to be bright and sunny for the day with moderate wind.
Players to watch out
Joe Root, who has already scored 367 runs in the competition, would be eagerly waiting to go out to bat in front of his home crowd. It would be interesting to see if he could surpass the record of most runs (447) of the current edition in this game or not.
Malinga, the only bowler in Sri Lankan line up who can restrict England under 300. He needs to pick wickets early on, especially of Bairstow and Root, who generally take time to settle. He would be hoping for some help from his opening partner Udana to keep the pressure on from the other end.
England v Sri Lanka in ODIs:
Overall: Matches 74, England Won 36, Sri Lanka Won 35, Tied 1, No Result 2
World Cup: Matches 10, England won 6, Sri Lanka Won 4
Recent Form (most recent first): England W W W L W, Sri Lanka L NR NR W L
ICC Rankings: England (1), Sri Lanka (9)
Upcoming Records:
Joe Root has scored 367 runs in this World Cup and needs three more to reach the 400 runs milestone. He will become only the second English player after Gooch and Pietersen to score 400 or more runs in a World Cup edition.
Morgan needs 41 more runs to become the 8th England batsman to reach 500 runs milestone in the World Cup tournament.
Lasith Malinga has taken 47 World Cup wickets and needs three more to become the third Sri Lankan player to reach the 50 wickets milestone.
Squads:
England: Eoin Morgan (capt), Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Jos Buttler (wk), Tom Curran, Liam Dawson, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, James Vince, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne (capt), Avishka Fernando, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Jeevan Mendis, Kusal Mendis (wk), Kusal Perera (wk), Thisara Perera, Nuwan Pradeep, Dhananjaya de Silva, Milinda Siriwardana, Lahiru Thirimanne, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay.
