The old adage is never to judge a pitch fully until both teams have taken their turns to bat on it, and this was as sharp a reminder of that as you can imagine. What looked as if it should have been a stroll in the park for England turned into a depressing defeat, their second of the tournament, as their batsmen simply could not come to terms with a tricky surface, as well as the ageless Lasith Malinga, ending 20 runs short of Sri Lanka’s 232 for nine. It was incredibly harsh on Ben Stokes, who finished stranded on 82, having played one of his finest innings, but his colleagues let him down. Some of their decision-making with the bat was quite brainless.

Source: The Times June 21, 2019 17:48 UTC