ICC World Cup 2019: Match 27, England vs Sri Lanka – Best Memes from the Match

It was just a Wow performance from Sri Lanka as they shocked England in their own den.

By CricTracker Staff verified

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Angelo Mathews
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Angelo Mathews. (Photo Source: Twitter)

Sri Lanka has just produced the best match of the 2019 World Cup. Wow! What s stunning defence of a moderate score that was! Lasith Malinga put his hand up when the team needed and not to forget Angelo Mathews’ unbeaten 85 off 115 with the bat which propelled Sri Lanka to 232. It was such an excellent effort from them when literally no one even gave them a chance before the match started.

Even at the halfway mark, the talk was about how early England will finish the game. However, the tacky and sporting pitch kept Sri Lanka interested from the first ball of the second innings. It started in a grand fashion for them as well with Lasith Malinga pinning Jonny Bairstow in the first over itself. James Vince continued to frustrate himself and the management with his starts. He got only 14 starts today before Malinga dismissed him.

The pressure was on England at 26/2 and the run-scoring automatically got slow with no pressure of the required run-rate. Joe Root played a brilliant knock to keep his team ahead and even after Eoin Morgan got out, the hosts were the favourites. However, there was panic when Root and Jos Buttler both got out in quick succession. And who got them out? There are no prizes for guessing.

Malinga was lucky to get Root strangled down the leg side while he bowled an excellent slower yorker to Buttler and pinned him lbw. Even after that, England had the firepower down the order and Moeen Ali hit some lusty blows to decrease the pressure off Ben Stokes who was calm at the other end. But the former took Dhanajaya de Silva a bit lightly and got greedy.

In an attempt to hit him out of the ground, Moeen was holed out in the deep and England crumbled. They collapsed from 170/5 to 178/8 and 186/9 with the off-spinner taking couple more wickets and there was looking back for Sri Lanka then. Though Stokes played beautifully and brought the runs down, Nuwan Pradeep bowled a perfect to get Mark Wood in the 47th over to leave the left-hander helpless at the other end.

England got bowled out for 212 runs after 47 overs with Malinga returning with the figures of 4/43 and De Silva supporting him with 3/32. England have got three matches against Australia, India and New Zealand respectively now and will have to play out of their skins to win at least two out of those.

Mathews comes back in form at the right time

Earlier in the day, Sri Lanka got off to a horrendous start with both their openers going back into the hut with only three runs on the board. Avishka Fernando, playing his first World Cup match, then took the attack to England smashing Jofra Archer out of the park. The partnership of 59 runs was dominated by Fernando but the lad threw it away after scoring 49 off 39 balls.

Kusal Mendis was set by then after taking his own time and he joined hands with the veteran and out of form Angelo Mathews. The duo slowed the pace of run-scoring but managed to lend the stability to the innings. They added 71 runs for the fourth wicket and just when things looked good, Mendis got out for a well compiled 46. Adil Rashid struck off the next delivery itself to send back Jeevan Mendis for a golden duck.

At 133/5, Sri Lanka looked like collapsing again. But Mathews was determined to play patiently and batted superbly. Dhananjaya de Silva also showed great heart and scored a vital 29 runs off 47 balls. More than that, his partnership of 57 runs with Mathews was crucial. The latter also went on to score his half-century and then took calculative risks while upping the ante.

It was absolutely vital for Mathew to play until the end and he aptly did it for his team. Though many runs didn’t come in the death overs apart from a rare boundary here and there, Sri Lanka made sure that they played the full quota of overs to crawl to 232 runs for the loss of nine wickets after 50 overs. Mathews remained unbeaten on 85 off 115 deliveries and the innings which looked like was played without any intent, turned out to be match-winning for the Islanders in the end.

They stunningly defended the moderate total to choke England and won the match by 20 runs as the jam-packed England crowd was left shell-shocked.

Here are some of the best memes:

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