Angelo Mathews hit a patient fifty before veteran pacer Lasith Malinga returned with a sensational four-wicket haul as Sri Lanka stunned hosts and tournament favourites England by 20 runs in a low-scoring thriller at Headingley, Leeds to keep their ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 semifinal hopes alive on Friday. Electing to bat, Lanka managed a modest 232 for nine, riding on an unbeaten 115-ball 85 by Mathews. The 1996 champions then returned to dismiss England for 212 in 47 overs despite Ben Stokes' brilliant unbeaten 82 off 89 to register only their second win in this tournament. Get the highlights and score of ENG vs SL match here.
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INNINGS BREAK
6:28 PM IST: Jofra Archer on with the last over. Angelo Mathews hits the first ball for a six, over mid-wicket. Archer responds with a yorker. Dot. Another dot. Mathews plays the fourth ball to long-on for a double. A dot, then another dot to end the innings. Eight runs from the over. Archer's figures: 10-2-52-3. SL-232/9 with Mathews unbeaten on 85 off 115.
England: James Vince, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan(c), Jos Buttler (wk), Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood
Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne (c), Kusal Perera (wk), Avishka Fernando, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera, Jeevan Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Isuru Udana, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Pradeep
In contrast, England have been in sublime form, winning four of their five matches and have eight points. They are especially dangerous with the bat as they have posted 300-plus scores in four of those five games -- two of them being 386/6 against Bangladesh and 397/6 against Afghanistan
In their last game against Australia, Sri Lanka suffered a 87-run loss at the Kennington Oval in London and therefore, it would need an extraordinary performance from Dimuth Karunaratne's men to get past an in-form English side.
Four English batsmen -- Joe Root (367), Eoin Morgan (249), Jonny Bairstow (218) and Jason Roy (215) -- are among the 10 highest-scoring batsmen in the ongoing tournament so far.
In their last match against Afghanistan, Morgan ran amok producing one of the best knocks in World Cup history -- a 71-ball knock of 148, which included a record 17 sixes.
Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Pradeep would require to deliver an out of the box performance to stop England from going berserk in Leeds.
Key Facts
Eoin Morgan needs 92 runs to become first England and 13th skipper overall to complete 4000 runs in ODIs. He has 3928 runs at an average of 46.76 in 96 innings of 105 matches.
Sri Lanka have won just two matches out of last eight in World Cup. Their victories came against Scotland at Hobart in 2015 and against Afghanistan at Cardiff in 2019.
After enjoying a six-match winning streak versus Sri Lanka in ODIs, England lost by 219 runs on the DLS method the last time the sides met in October 2018.
England and Sri Lanka have two wins apiece in ODIs they have contested at Headingley.
Key Quotes
"Obviously, it means a lot. To play 100 games for England, ODI games, it's a dream. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would get close to it so it's an amazing feeling," England all-rounder Moeen Ali.
"England is the best batting line-up against the spinners in the world. If you take the Asian countries, I think England are playing [spin] even better than them. We know that we need to restrict them to less than 300, we have a couple of plans against the batsmen and we will try to use them in the middle," Sri Lanka captain Dimtuh Karunaratne.
Squads
Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne (c), Dhananjaya de Silva, Nuwan Pradeep, Avishka Fernando, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Kusal Mendis, Jeevan Mendis, Kusal Perera, Thisara Perera, Milinda Siriwardana, Lahiru Thirimanne, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay.