The Hindu : Sport : England sneaks home, takes lead

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Tuesday, Oct 09, 2007
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Sport

England sneaks home, takes lead

Ted Corbett

— PHOTO: AFP

TIME TO CELEBRATE: Ryan Sidebottom played a crucial role in England’s thrilling win over Sri Lanka in the third ODI in Dambulla.

DAMBULLA: A great modern batsman like Ricky Ponting, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Jacques Kallis or Brian Lara would have won the third one-day game of small scores on automatic pilot but no one of that ilk made himself known in the Rangiri Stadium on Sunday.

The match that will probably settle the series was stolen by England with persistence rather than panache. Both sides knew they could win and lost their way before England sneaked home by two wickets with seven balls to spare.

For the second match in four days, Sri Lanka’s top-order batsmen batted poorly. When England’s attempt to score 164 in 48 overs began late Sri Lanka was favourite under the miserable Dambulla lights.

Early trouble

Alastair Cook was out for nought and the task of scoring 164 off 48 overs looked as hard as climbing the 2400 steps to the ancient hill-top palace at nearby Sigirya. Mustard was bowled round his legs at 23 by Farveez Maharoof; now the local papara band in mid crowd was really rocking. At 44, Maharoof, the main destroyer in this series, had Kevin Pietersen leg before.

So an assault on victory was left to captain Collingwood, even more so when Ian Bell was superbly caught at point.

The final runs came from the 21-year-old Stuart Broad, another young man made of the right stuff. Things are looking up, don’t you know.

SCOREBOARD

Sri Lanka: 164 in 41.1 overs. England: A. Cook c Sangakkara b Vaas 0, P. Mustard b Maharoof 14, I. Bell c Dilshan b Maharoof 16, K. Pietersen lbw b Maharoof 8, P. Collingwood lbw b Jayasuriya 32, O. Shah b Jayasuriya 19, R. Bopara lbw b Malinga 6, G. Swann b Fernando 25, S. Broad (not out) 20, R. Sidebottom (not out) 7; Extras (b-1, lb-8, w-6, nb-2): 17; Total (for eight wkts. in 46.5 overs): 164.

Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-23, 3-44, 4-47, 5-94, 6-101, 7-107, 8-147.

Sri Lanka bowling: Vaas 6-1-20-1, Maharoof 10-0-34-3, Fernando 10-2-31-1, Malinga 7.5-1-39-1, Dilshan 3-0-8-0, Jayasuriya 10-1-23-2.

Note: England’s target was revised to 164

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