England complete 3-0 T20I series sweep against Sri Lanka

England have comfortably beaten Sri Lanka 3-0 in the T20I bilateral series after a dominating 89-run win in the final T20 in Southampton. The 3-match series was largely a one-sided affair, with the islanders offering very little threat with either bat or ball against England. In the absence of plenty of their big names – Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer – Eoin Morgan’s side eased past Sri Lanka thanks to performances from the likes of Dawid Malan and Sam Curran.

The left-armer was named as the man of the series for his outstanding effort with the ball across the three matches. Curran picked up 5 wickets and was incredibly influential with the new ball, providing Eoin Morgan with the early breakthroughs in the powerplay in all three games.

After comfortably chasing scores of 129 and 111 in the first two matches, England were put in to bat by Sri Lanka in the third and final T20I. With both regular openers injured, Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow opened the batting for the hosts and shared a 105-run partnership. Bairstow scored 51 while Malan managed an impressive 76 off 48 deliveries. This was a crucial innings for the number one ranked T20 batsman in the world after his poor run of form in the 5-match series against India in March. 

England scored 143-1 after 15 overs but collapsed to 163-6 with one over to go due to an inspired bowling spell from Dushmantha Chameera who picked up career-best figures off 4-17.

The hosts eventually finished with 180 from their 20 overs which proved to be a tall order for the brittle Sri Lankan batting line-up. The Lankans lost opener Danushka Gunathilaka off the 2nd ball of the innings and the wickets kept tumbling from that point onwards. Only three Sri Lankan batters entered double figures and the visitors collapsed to 64-8 thanks to excellent spells from Sam Curran (2-14) and David Willey (3-17). They were eventually bowled out for only 91 runs with Eoin Morgan’s side winning by 89 runs at the Ageas Bowl, England’s 4th biggest win in terms of runs in T20 cricket. 

Despite winning the series 3-0, there aren’t many learnings to take for England ahead of the T20 World Cup in November. Sri Lanka posed very few challenges to the hosts throughout the series and the conditions will be incredibly different at the World Cup in the UAE compared to the pitches experienced in Cardiff or Southampton.