Sri Lanka Chase 430 to Beat England by Two Wickets — Brook's 202 Ends on the Losing Side

Some days a cricket match is a contest between bat and ball. Thursday at Rawalpindi was something else, a contest between two batting sides with the bowlers mostly watching. England made 429 for 4, built on Harry Brook's 202 from 116 balls, England's first ODI double hundred. Sri Lanka lost their captain to a run-out without him facing a ball and were 24 for 2 in the fifth over. They got the runs anyway, with one ball to spare.

The aggregate was 859 runs. ESPNcricinfo called it the second-highest chase in the format's history, and Brook became the first man to make an ODI double hundred and end up losing. The match turned on a quiet idea. Kusal Mendis bowled first expecting dew, and by the evening the dew had come and Sri Lanka's batters were hitting through it.

The start could hardly have been worse. Josh Tongue bowled Kamindu Mendis in the fourth over, and two balls into the fifth Kusal Mendis was run out without facing, the ball reaching the stumps off Gus Atkinson's fingertips. That was 24 for 2, chasing 430.

Avishka Fernando was then given lbw and overturned it on review, and he and Rathnayake added 166 from 137 balls. Fernando reached fifty from 49 balls and fell three short of a hundred, chipping a return catch to Jamie Overton at 190 for 3 in the 28th over. Sri Lanka then sent Dasun Shanaka in at No. 5, and the decision worked. He was given out twice, caught behind off Atkinson on 32 and lbw to Liam Dawson on 41, and both decisions were overturned on review. He hit six fours and eight sixes in a 50-ball 97, and added 133 from 79 balls with Rathnayake, who fell for 130, his highest international score, caught at long-on off Sam Curran.

Shanaka was caught in the deep off the last ball of Dawson's spell, the second Sri Lankan out for 97, with 67 needed from 36. Liyanage had come in needing 107 from 58 balls. He faced 27, hit seven fours and three sixes, including 4, 4, 6 off Curran, and only two of them were dots. Overton conceded just five in the 49th over, after Liyanage and Wellalage had taken boundaries off Jacks to leave 13 needed from the last 12 balls. Tongue bowled Wellalage and Malinga with successive balls. Asitha Fernando, who had 19 runs in his previous 35 ODIs, sliced a single to give Liyanage the strike with six needed from two. Tongue's slower ball landed in the slot, and Liyanage hit it back over his head for six.

Brook's innings started slowly. He had 13 from his first 24 balls before two consecutive sixes off Kamindu Mendis's part-time spin got him going, and after that he was hard to stop. He reached 50 from 42 balls, 100 from 75, 150 from 97 and 200 from 114, the second hundred taking 39 balls. He added 159 with Root, who made 69 before top-edging a cutter to midwicket, and then 185 from 79 balls with Jacks, whose 66 not out came from 30. England scored 156 in the last ten overs. Brook reached 200 with a paddle-sweep for four in the final over and was caught off the last ball of the innings.

ESPNcricinfo reported that the innings broke a record Shubman Gill had set last month, and made Brook only the second player after Chris Gayle to have a Test triple hundred, an ODI double hundred and a T20I hundred. None of that consoled him. "Being on the losing side, it has no value whatsoever in my eyes," he said afterwards.

The trouble was with the ball. Dew made gripping difficult, and Curran's 2 for 103 in nine overs broke his own record for England's worst ODI figures. Atkinson went wicketless in seven overs, and only Tongue, who took two wickets in two balls in the final over, kept England in the game. Brook's verdict was fair: "Sri Lanka just outplayed us, unfortunately."

The match began in the afternoon, and Brook spent two and a half hours batting in the heat. Kusal Mendis bowled first because he expected dew, and it came heavily in the evening. The surface was good for batting all day, and the difference between the innings was the wet ball. ESPNcricinfo noted Curran struggled to grip it at the death. Brook said England "couldn't quite hit our straps with the ball". If the dew comes like this again, captains winning the toss here will want to bowl first.

It says something about Rathnayake's innings that he won the award on a day when the other side's captain made 202. He came in at 24 for 2 needing more than eight an over for 45 overs, and he didn't try to match Brook stroke for stroke. He reached fifty from 50 balls while Avishka Fernando did most of the scoring, then accelerated once Shanaka arrived, finishing with 130 from 106 balls, 15 fours and three sixes. He was involved in both of Sri Lanka's big partnerships, 166 and 133, and by the time he fell at 323 for 4 in the 41st over, the chase was within reach.

Brook's innings was more spectacular, but Rathnayake's was what the chase depended on. Without his steady presence through the middle overs, Shanaka and Liyanage would not have had the platform to finish it.

We called England "marginal favourites", so we got the winner wrong. We said England's batting ran deeper, and it did produce 429, but we didn't foresee Sri Lanka chasing it. We expected Adil Rashid's leg-spin to be decisive, but neither Rashid nor Mason Crane played. We said winning the toss and batting first was attractive because the surface slows in the afternoon. In fact Sri Lanka chose to field, and the dew made batting second easier. We also said Sri Lanka's bowling was deeper than it looked, but their four frontline bowlers and three allrounders conceded 429. We hoped Kusal Mendis could give Sri Lanka a top-order platform, and he was run out without facing a ball. One thing we did get right was naming Pavan Rathnayake as evidence of batting depth after his 79 against Pakistan, and he was the Player of the Match. Our preview also listed a 10:00 AM IST start, but the match began in the afternoon local time.

After three matches, Pakistan have won two from two, Sri Lanka one from two and England none from two. The tournament now moves to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore for the remaining three group matches, with the top two going to the final there on October 31. England have to win their remaining games and need their bowling to recover, especially in dewy conditions. Sri Lanka's batting now looks much stronger after this chase, but their attack conceded 429 and that remains a concern.