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#report

The pinch-hitting night-watchman

Tweet report for the Champions Trophy game between England and Sri Lanka

Nitin Sundar
Nitin Sundar
13-Jun-2013
Sri Lanka v England. Lots of national anthem jokes, and lots of Jonathan Trott jokes. How about one that combined the two?
Sri Lanka made an interesting change to their XI. No one could have anticipated the sort of impact it would have on the game.
The David Warner punch-up added to the intrigue leading into the game.
Ian Bell departed early, clipping a straight ball to midwicket. That meant Twitter's favourite whipping boy was out in the middle early.
Trott began with a spurt of rare aggression, and sprinted to 15 off 14 balls.
Alastair Cook and Trott settled in to lay a solid base for England. They were helped along by some sloppy Sri Lankan catching.
Does your boss keep dropping catches?
Cook departed after reviewing an lbw call where the ball was hitting the middle of middle stump.
All eyes were on Joe Root, who proceeded to play a sound innings.
But England just refused to step on the gas until the very end.
When the cricket is dull, strange stats begin to do the rounds. This was perhaps one for Ask Steven.
Dilshan continued to put down catches. Not his best day on the field.
Despite losing a bunch of wickets leading up to the close, England surged to 293 thanks to Ravi Bopara, who smacked an unbeaten 33 off 13 balls.
Not everyone was impressed though.
Bopara's first name and good form put him in elite company.
Sri Lanka's chase got off to a weak start, with Kusal Perera once again falling for a low score.
Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan put their heads down to set a base, but their running between the wickets was dodgy.
Graeme Swann got rid of Dilshan and gave him a big send-off too. That set the stage for a poetic partnership.
Just as England began to get some reverse swing going, the umpires effected a ball change.
Jayawardene took control of the chase with some mesmeric batting. He took a particular liking to Stuart Broad's bowling.
The wicket eventually went to the batting Powerplay, when Jayawardene holed out to the deep.
Angelo Mathews surprised everyone by sending in Nuwan Kulasekara ahead of the middle order, as a Powerplay pinch-hitter. Sunil Gavaskar declared on air that it was a bad idea.
Kulasekara took a few minutes finding his range, but once he did, sixes and fours started flying in all directions.
Sangakkara waltzed past his 100, and just like that, Sri Lanka closed in on a famous win.
There haven't been too many of those recently. Atleast on Twitter, everyone seemed to know what cost England the game.
England vs Sri LankaICC Champions Trophy

Nitin Sundar is social media manager at ESPNcricinfo

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