England batters blow away Sri Lanka attack to complete another clean sweep

Swashbuckling batting by Jones, Wyatt, Sciver and Beaumont tore Sri Lanka attack into pieces to hand huge victory to England and clean sweep the series 3-0.

In their quest to end the Sri Lanka tour with a perfect record, England met Sri Lanka at Colombo in the final T20I game of the series. Having whitewashed the ODI series England needed to win this game to win 6^th consecutive T20I and 10^th consecutive international match on the subcontinent.

Sri Lanka made 3 changes to the squad from the last match. Methtananda, Kulasuriaya, and Sugandika Kumari replaced Ranaweera, Fernando and Mendis. England too made one change as Brunt made way for Cross.

For the 6 out of 6 games Sri Lanka won the toss. They opted to bowl first.

England stuck to the same opening pair of Wyatt and Jones who had put up a 79-run partnership in the previous match. Both the batters did not waste any time and started smashing the balls as if they were continuing from where they had left in the last match.

Wyatt smashed two fours in the first two overs whereas Jones hit first six of the match in the 3^rd over. In the next over Jones smashed 3 consecutive fours. Wyatt hit her first six in the 5^th over to bring up their 2^nd consecutive 50-run partnership. At the end of the powerplay of 6 overs, England had posted 61-0.

In the 9^th over Wyatt brought up her 7^th T20I half-century with a single off Siriwardene. But with the score at 96, she fell to Ranasinghe for 53 (33b 6x4, 1x6) in the next over as Sri Lanka got much needed breakthrough. Jones continued her onslaught and in the 12^th over, she brought up her half-century in 34 balls with a huge six off Siriwardene.

Ranasinghe struck again to dismiss Jones for 57 (38b 6x4, 2x6). At 116/2 Sciver joined Beaumont and opened her inning by smashing 3 consecutive fours off Karunaratne. In the 17^th over Sciver became the 6^th English woman to reach 1000 runs milestone.

Sciver hit 4 consecutive fours in the 19^th over and took a single off the 5^th delivery to reach 49. England scored 12 runs in the final over but Sciver couldn’t reach her half-century despite getting strike for 2 deliveries. She remained unbeaten on 49 (24b 10x4) and Beaumont on 42* (25b 4x4).

Chasing a mammoth 205 for a victory, Sri Lanka suffered early setbacks as Thimashini was trapped leg before by Smith in the 2^nd over and the skipper Atapattu was dismissed by Davis in the 3^rd over. At 15-2 Siriwardene joined Karunaratne in the middle. She departed just 8 deliveries later on as Dunkley took the catch off Cross.

As the hosts slipped to 21-3, Ranasinghe and Karunaratne put up a brief resistance and added 16 runs before Marsh bowled her out for 9. The England skipper Knight brought herself on in the attack and immediately on the 2^nd delivery she removed Madavi to send host’s half the side back in the pavilion for 46 runs.

Surangika and Karunaratne ensured that the hosts do not go down timidly by adding 36 runs for the 6^th wicket in 7.5 overs. The resistance was broken in the 17^th over when Cross trapped Surangika leg before for 17. In the 20^th over Karunanatne brought up 100 for the hosts and finally they reached 108-6 thus handing England a huge victory by 96 runs.

England have thus won 6 T20I in a row in the Indian subcontinent whereas Sri Lanka have faced 7 consecutive defeats.

Amy Jones was the top scorer with 111 runs and Smith picked up 4 wickets in the series for England whereas Karunaratne became top scorer with 73 runs and Ranasinghe and Siriwardene picked up 2 wickets each for Sri Lanka.

 

Brief Score:

England 204/2 (20 overs) (Jones 57, Wyatt 51, Sciver 49*, Ranasinghe 2-28) beat Sri Lanka 108/6 (20 overs) (Karunaratne 44*, Cross 2-20) by 96 runs.