England sweep aside Sri Lanka as Jos Buttler stars with the bat

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Jos Buttler’s 68 not out helped England cruise to an eight-wicket victory against Sri Lanka in Cardiff and give Eoin Morgan’s side a 1-0 lead in the T20I series.

It was a victory set up by England’s bowlers, who restricted Sri Lanka to a modest 129/7 from their 20 overs. Kusal Perera’s men failed to deal with the variation and consistency of England’s attack and never got going apart from a Dasun Shanaka half-century.

This was perhaps down to the six changes made from Sri Lanka’s previous T20I against the West Indies in March. In his first T20I as captain, Perera was unable to call upon the experience of Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and Thisara Perera with coach Mickey Arthur looking to the future with a young squad.

There was a first T20I appearance in six years for Chris Woakes, whilst Liam Livingstone was somewhat surprisingly preferred to Moeen Ali as a spin-bowling all-rounder. It was the Warwickshire seamer who opened the bowling for England with great control, just as he has done in One-Day-International matches.

It was Sam Curran who struck first to remove Avishka Fernando who’s mistimed drive was easily gathered by the safe hands of Chris Jordan, in what was a sign of things to come.

Jordan then claimed his first wicket of the game to remove Danushka Gunathilaka who played one shot too many after attempting to scoop the Sussex man, with Buttler taking one of the easiest catches of his career.

Livingstone justified the faith that his captain placed in him by removing Kusal Mendis with ultra-edge showing that there was no bat involved. The Lancashire man has been in impressive form this season with an unbeaten 94 and recent scores of 45 and 65, but he impressed with the ball having only conceded nine runs from his 12 deliveries.

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Mendis’ departure brought Shanaka to the crease, and the all-rounder went about his business in a sensible manner by timing his shots well without looking to overhit the ball. That being said, Shanaka’s patience came at a cost to his team as they had to wait for the penultimate over to take their run-rate above one run a ball.

Shanaka helped Sri Lanka claim 25 runs from the final two overs, which provided their score with a tad of respectability. Although in reality, it was never enough to trouble the England batting lineup with only his captain scoring more than 20.

Buttler set the tone for his innings with a sweetly-hit lofted drive over cover, with Jason Roy using the leg-side to his advantage as their opening stand reached 50 in the fifth over.

It took an incredible grab at mid-off from Gunathilaka to dismiss Roy, who will have been disappointed not to bat through the whole innings.

Dawid Malan failed to get into his stride as the Yorkshire batsman was dismissed by a terrific ball from Isuru Udana which crashed into the top of the off-stump.

By this time, Buttler had already reached 50 with 10 runs off just two deliveries from Akila Dananjaya, with the vice-captain highlighting the difference in quality between the two teams.

Jonny Bairstow clubbed a massive six into the leg-side to bring the scores level, with Buttler sneaking a single after being dropped by Perera off the final ball of the game to seal a convincing win and claiming the Man of the Match award.

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