Liam Plunkett hailed England's batting depth

Liam Plunkett had almost presented his side with an unbelievable win in the first ODI of the series at Trent Bridge. With 7 needed off the last ball, he hit the last ball from Nuwan Pradeep for a six to have the Sri Lankan fans stunned. Plunkett credited the batting depth for the comeback from a struggling situation.

“It was nice to get that one out,” Plunkett said after the game. “They bowled well at the death and obviously Woakesy (Chris Woakes) and Jos (Buttler) put us in a great position after a few early wickets. We bat all the way down – me and (Adil Rashid) are 10 and 11 – so we’re backing ourselves to take it as deep as possible. I just feel if you’re in at the end you give yourself the best chance to clear the ropes and lucky enough it was the last ball.”

“It shows the depth we’ve got. It’s good for the team isn’t it? You know you can carry on all the way through an innings. If you struggle up top then hopefully the end can get a big score and if not you can carry on from ball one,” he added.

Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews had the match in his grasp for most part of it, especially after having England struggling at 82 for 6. Jos Buttler (93) and Chris Woakes batted exceptionally well from there, to have the win in sight for the home side. Woakes remained unbeaten on 95 from 92 balls.

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England skipper Eoin Morgan was almost surprised with the tie. “You can always win the game from any situation and today proved that a little bit,” Morgan said.

“We were dead and buried a couple of times in the World T20. There is a lot of belief in the changing room, particularly with the bat. We are very lucky to get out of this game with a tie and go to Edgbaston at 0-0 all square. The general performance was poor. Bat, ball, field, was really rusty. That was as bad as we have performed with the bat over the past year. A lot of Woakes’ story is that he is competing with Ben Stokes and the two of them are incredible cricketers. We are lucky to have both of them”

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“I thought we had the game in the bag for most of the overs,” Mathews said. “Unfortunately, Nuwan Pradeep’s final ball yorker fell just offline and went for a six. For Pradeep, it happens. Unfortunately for bowlers, it happens. All the bowlers did well.

“We fell short by 15 or 20 runs. It was a brilliant wicket to bat on but we had to be satisfied with 286. We just kept losing wickets at crucial times.We’ve got lots of positives. We batted and bowled pretty well. But we were poor in the field. We can improve in all three departments but especially in the fielding,” he concluded.