Sri Lanka stroll to Lord's win by showing England how to bat as one

Alastair Cook made a century in this match on Sunday, and it is a disappointment if he does not these days. It was to no avail, though, as Sri Lanka gave England another lesson in the art of one-day cricket. Only when Kevin Pietersen was blazing with the bat as a counterpoint to Cook's early steadfast stodginess did England seem to have the potential to post the sort of total that might challenge a batting side as versatile and experienced as Sri Lanka on a pristine pitch. Only when Jimmy Anderson and Jade Dernbach and then Tim Bresnan began to find some significant reverse swing, midway through the Sri Lankan innings, did England look like arresting Sri Lanka's progress to the target of 247. Mahela Jayawardene made 79 at around a run a ball without seeming to break sweat or offending the eye at any stage and was on course for his fourth century in six ODIs in this country when, unaccountably, he smeared a wide long hop from Dernbach – one of his quiverful of slower deliveries, in fairness – to backward point. But the precocious Dinesh Chandimal survived a testing spell from Stuart Broad to make an unbeaten 105 from 126 balls, reaching his century with a six over long‑on from Bresnan and closing the match, won by six wickets, with his 11th four. The game was effectively over long before Angelo Mathews tried to manoeuvre his partner to three figures, the margin greater than the 10 balls in hand suggests. Sri Lanka lead the series by two matches to one with two to play. Given that they have longer‑term objectives than just this series, England can be forgiven for resisting knee-jerk changes after a single defeat. They therefore went with the same side that had been beaten in Leeds. But successive innings where the end product has fallen so far short of expectation beg the question not so much of the personnel but the manner in which they are being employed. At Headingley on Friday Jonathan Trott, at three, dragged the tempo of the innings down so that others, notably Pietersen and Eoin Morgan, the most accomplished one‑day batsmen in the team, were obliged to take more and ultimately terminal risks in pursuit of an adequate scoring rate. In this match neither Trott nor before him Craig Kieswetter were able even to engage gear before they were gone and later, after Morgan had failed for once, Ian Bell produced a curious innings of 30 that contained no fewer than 28 ones, as if he was trying to qualify for a singles club loyalty card. There has to be some merit in re-assessing the batting order and instruction of sort could perhaps come from the rowing at Henley last week. It is said of rowing crews that it is not necessarily the physically strongest crew which goes fastest but the best matched and the most technically efficient. Get the balance right, with the right people in the right order in the boat, and they can exceed the sum of the component parts. Get it wrong and a crew as a whole can be working against one another rather than together. Have England got the right players in the right order? Furthermore, in one-day cricket circumstance ought, to some extent, dictate the batting order, where the idea that everyone knows their place and sticks to it should be an outmoded one. If Kieswetter goes early, do they need Trott to come in, or would it not be better to have Bell or Pietersen? If Cook were to go first, then Trott could replace him. Or is Trott, for all his World Cup runs, sufficiently versatile, given Cook's presence, to be in the side in the first place? Flexibility of thinking during the powerplays is something used to considerable effect by the England women, incidentally, and who is to say the men cannot learn from that? This order is not firing in high-scoring situations. Cook's was certainly an effort characterised by the determination that has made him one of the foremost Test batsmen in the world. It could be said that in making 119, it was he who resurrected the innings from virtual stagnation at the halfway stage, except that the situation was in no small part his own creation. As a one-day innings it was a very good Test-match hundred. He was badly dropped at first slip by Jayawardene when on 15 and Sri Lanka certainly bowled well to him and all the England batsmen, with clever changes of pace and bowlers and the two front-line spinners conceding only 73 runs from 18 overs between them. But it was only Pietersen, in making 41, who was able to wrest the initiative away from them, his runs coming in 49 added with Cook, despite the captain facing 20 deliveries in that time. Pietersen looked close to his dominant one-day best, striding forward on to and outside his off‑stump to work the leg side. Three times in as many balls the pace of Suranga Lakmal was hit – first whipped through square leg, then belted straight down the ground and finally carved through extra cover. Thrice now in this series, though, Pietersen has been undone through attacking: a pull to midwicket at the Oval; a catch at wide long‑on at Leeds; and now a top‑edged sweep from the leg‑spinner Jeevan Mendis. He is close, very close, to the dominant one, but not quite there.