England in Champions Trophy boost

England's one-day squad will now go straight into the second stage of the Champions Trophy © Getty Images

England were given an extra reason to celebrate following their series-levelling win against India when the ICC confirmed they had qualified for the second stage of the Champions Trophy, due to be staged in India during October.

Only sides in the top six of the ODI table on April 1 automatically reach that stage and England will now be at least sixth on that date thanks to Sri Lanka's four-wicket loss to Pakistan in Colombo.

They faced the prospect of an additional three one-day matches in India being crammed into an already congested fixture calendar had they finished outside the top six. Teams ranked seventh to tenth taking part in a round-robin series of matches before the Champions Trophy proper starts. England will now have a valuable extra couple of weeks break before the intensive period of the tournament followed straight afterwards by the Ashes series.

Sri Lanka's defeat in Colombo dropped them to 105 points and it means that even if England lose their two ODI matches against India before the cut-off date they cannot drop out of the top six. If that scenario happened, England would slip to 105 rating points but would still retain sixth place when the ratings were recalculated to three decimal places.