Lahiru Kumara (11/134) fires Sri Lanka to series win
NORTHAMPTON: England Under-19s suffered their first home defeat for
six years in a four-day match as an outstanding bowling performance by
Lahiru Kumara fired Sri Lanka to a seven-wicket victory in Northampton.
Kumara, a well-built seamer from Kandy, claimed four more wickets as
England could only manage 192 in their second innings. That completed
match figures of 11 for 134, and left Sri Lanka needing only 94 for
victory. They knocked them off for the loss of three wickets, two of
them to Warwickshire seamer George Panayi, meaning they win the
two-match series 1-0 after England enjoyed the better of a rain-affected
draw in Cambridge last week.
Lahiru Kumara |
England's last home four-day defeat had also come against Sri Lanka
in Northampton in 2010, when a team including Joe Root and Jake Ball
were beaten by 199 runs.
They made a promising start on the third morning after resuming their
second innings on 24 for 1, with Olly Westbury and George Hankins
surviving a searching examination from Kumara and Jehan Daniel who both
generated consistent and considerable in-swing to the right-handers.
It was the introduction of spin which broke the stand as Hankins was
lbw trying to sweep the slow-left-arm of Praveen Jayawickrama, ending a
restrained innings of 20 from 70 balls from the Gloucestershire batsman.
The next blow to England was self-inflicted as Westbury, the
Worcestershire opener who made 196 in Cambridge and had compiled a
patient 41 from 109 balls, was run out by a call for a quick single from
George Bartlett. Next ball, Westbury's Worcestershire team-mate Josh
Dell became the first of two England batsmen to complete a pair,
although he was unlucky to be brilliantly caught at silly point as he
pushed forward to Jayawickrama.
That left England on 89 for 4, still 10 runs behind. Bartlett, the
Somerset batsman who also scored a century at Fenner's, did his best to
repair the damage by making 26, before edging a superb delivery from
Kumara to third slip soon after lunch.
Hampshire's Josh McCoy completed England's second pair when he was
bowled by Kumara, but Surrey's wicketkeeper Ollie Pope made a promising
23 from 31 balls until he was also trapped lbw by Jayawickrama.
The Essex seamer Aaron Beard then joined Yorkshire's Ed Barnes to put
on 48 for the eighth wicket, the second highest stand of the innings.
But Beard chipped a full toss from Sri Lanka's captain Charith Asalanka
to mid-off, and George Panayi edged the next ball to slip.
Amar Virdi was the last man out, leaving Barnes unbeaten on 18. The
Yorkshireman also claimed a wicket in Sri Lanka's second innings, as
Dilan Jayalath holed out to Bartlett on the square leg boundary, and
Panayi briefly raised England's hopes when he trapped Avishka Fernando
lbw with his fourth ball.
But Sri Lanka's captain Charith Asalanka ensured there were no nerves
in such a small chase by cracking 40 from 18 balls including two sixes,
one of which soared over the signal box at Wantage Road and into the
gardens of Clarke Road.
England have the chance to hit back in a three-match Royal London
One-Day Series which starts at Wormsley next Wednesday, and ends with a
day-night game at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence on Tuesday week which
will be televised live by Sky Sports. |