Thisara Perera and Lasith Malinga scripts a thrilling win against England - Recently crowned world champions of the shortest format of the cricket played their first Twenty 20 international match in England. The Sri Lanka’s Tour of England had only one T20 international match. Winning the toss Eoin Morgan elected to field first. The Oval had been a tricky stadium for the visitors as the ever changing weather of England has always been a matter of concern for the visiting team. Batting first the visitors went off to a flying start as Tilakaratne Dilshan scored 14 runs in just 9 deliveries. But the flying start was soon halted by the debutant Harry Gurney as he took the wicket of dangerous Tilakaratne Dilshan in the 3rd over the match. The Lankans faced another setback in the following over as they lost the wicket of Kusal Perera leaving the team struggling at 24/2. Kithuruwan Vithanage and Lahiru Thirimanne managed to control the drowning ship as both the players etched together a partnership of fifty runs. Vithanage soon lost his wicket thus halting his dream debut at a score of 38 in just 29 balls. Thirimanne played a good knock of 40 runs thus taking his team to respectable score. But at the end it was a Thisara Perera show as he with the help of his 20 ball 49 took his team to a massive score of 184. Debutant Gurney was the star bowler as he took 2 wickets giving away 26 runs.
Chasing a score of 184 England had a dismal start losing 2 wickets in the first 6 over. The dismal performance continued as the captain Eoin Morgan and Joe Root failed to score thus leaving their team in a poor condition. It was Alex Hales, Ravi Bopara and Jos Buttler who managed a fight against the world champions taking their team to a score of 174. The batsmen scored 66, 28 and 26 runs respectively. At the end England lost the match by 9 runs and Lasith Malinga was the star bowler taking 3 wickets. Thisara Perera got the man of the match award for his brilliant batting performance.