England take an unassailable 2-0 lead in ODI series against Sri Lanka with an eight-wicket win at the Kia Oval; Sam Curran bagged five wickets to limit tourists to 241-9 before Jason Roy, Joe Root and Eoin Morgan score half a century in a successful chase; third and final ODI at Bristol on Sunday
Sam Curran and Jason Roy fired on their own turf before Joe Root and Eoin Morgan went undefeated for half a century when England defeated Sri Lanka by eight wickets at the Kia Oval to close out an ODI series win with a game to spare.
Curran (5-48) captured his first international five-wicket round, including three wickets within his first two overs, as England cut Sri Lanka to 21-4 and then limited them to 241-9, with David Willey taking 4-64 and Dhananjaya de Silva hit a 91 run-a-ball for the tourists.
Curran’s Surrey teammate Roy, back on the England side after a hamstring problem, hit 60 of 52 balls, dominating a 76-run position with his starting teammate Jonny Bairstow (29 ) when the home team quickly began to chase.
Root, like Durham on Tuesday, led England to victory with half a century unbeaten, backing his 79 in the North East with 68 in South London and compiling a winning position of 140 with Morgan (75th) leading. the hosts closed in on their goal in 43 overs to take an impregnable 2-0 lead.
England’s win made five wins in as many games against their beleaguered opponents, having swept the T20 series 3-0 and won Tuesday’s first ODI at Emirates Riverside by five wickets.
England, who have not lost an ODI Oval since going to New Zealand in 2015, will now aim to complete a 3-0 series win in Sunday’s third and final ODI in Bristol, live Sky Sports Cricket from 10.30 a.m.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka, which has now lost seven of its last eight ODIs, will be looking for a complete team batting performance, after following scores of 91 in the final T20 and 185 in the first ODI with another below par. exit, beginning when four batters fell within seven overs.
Captain Kusal Perera (0) and Aviskha Fernando (2) were eliminated against Sam Curran in the second over, before the same pitcher threw Pathum Nissanka (5) through the door on the drive in the fourth and Charith Asalanka (3) then dressed. Willey to short midwicket in the seventh.
Dhananjaya provoked Sri Lanka with a flurry of four and one fifty-five balls, sharing associations of 65 and 78 with Wanindu Hasaranga (26) and Dasun Shanka (47) for fifth and sixth places respectively.
Hasaranga was brought down at 10 – Bairstow could only stop the ball as he leaped athletically to his right after a 93 mph pitch from Mark Wood found the advantage – but Sam Curran then had the batter catch in the deep square.
Dhananjaya, who would have run out of 40 if Sam Curran’s shyness at the end of the wicketkeeper had been spot on, found another decent ally in Shanaka, who made one of the two inning sixes a shake.
Dhananjaya perished nine runs short of an inaugural ODI ton when he faced Willey’s short ball and shot a deep square back, while Shanaka also missed a milestone, a quarter ODI fifty, when he left Willey to covered after having put another. 42 with Chamika Karunaratne (21).
Curran achieved his milestone, however, when he had Karunaratne caught in the Bairstow pull as he completed a first five for England after two previous four-wickets in test cricket.
Willey was also considering a five-wicket set once he made Binura Fernando (17) his fourth victim early in the final, but Dushmantha Chameera’s aggressive shots from the last three balls, one of which was six on long, eluded. the gardeners of England.
Willey has now taken 10 wickets in his last three games against Sri Lanka, returning Thursday after 3-44 in the first ODI at Emirates Riverside and 3-27 in the third and final T20 at Southampton.
Roy missed the third T20 and the opening ODI, but showed no ill effects from his niggle on the hamstring when he hit eight four in the first eight overs of the chase after having replaced Liam Livingstone in the England XI: Roy was 40 and Bairstow was only nine by the time the opening booth reached fifty.
Bairstow got under way firing two fours and a six off Asitha Fernando in the ninth envelope, but then cut spinner Hasaranga on his stumps in the 13th, while Roy, hitting a 20-out-of-50 ODI with 47 balls, was to a catch. from Dhananjaya in midwicket in early 18.
Sri Lanka could not gain any more ground, although they would have eliminated Morgan in 40 if Captain Perera had had a tough chance near the stumps of the Hasaranga bowling alley in 31.
As it stood, Morgan advanced to a 47th ODI for half a century, Root a 35th and England to a series-sealing victory as the one-sided nature of these white-ball clashes with Sri Lanka continued.
Watch the third and final ODI between England and Sri Lanka, from Bristol, live on Sky Sports Cricket (channel 401) and Sky Sports Main Event (channel 401) starting at 10.30am. M. From Sunday.