Aneurin Donald’s England debut lasted five balls, and Harry Brook’s 42-ball hundred did the rest

Sri Lanka reviewed the third ball of the match. Aneurin Donald, opening on his England debut at 29 after a Vitality Blast in which he made 489 runs at a strike rate of 214, had been given not out, and Sri Lanka sent it upstairs. It stayed not out. Two overs later Donald was caught at deep midwicket for 12 off 5, which is the sort of debut cameo nobody remembers by the end of the night, and by the end of this night Harry Brook was 114 not out and Sri Lanka had lost by 119 runs.

Brook’s fifty took 20 balls, his hundred 42

Asalanka won the toss at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday and put England in, which is defensible in the abstract and was a disaster in practice. England were 90 for 1 after six overs and 254 for 4 at the end, a run rate of 12.70.

Brook did most of it. He came in at 31 for 1 and reached fifty off 20 balls, with four sixes in it, then took 22 more balls to get to a hundred. He finished unbeaten on 114 off 49 with ten fours and six sixes, and he was still there at the end because England lost their fourth wicket off the last ball of the innings.

Jos Buttler made 80 off 44 at the other end, reaching fifty off 29, and the pair put on 128 for the second wicket. A hundred of those runs came off 47 balls. Tom Banton made 10 off 10 and Will Jacks hit 21 off 12 before holing out to finish the innings.

Sri Lanka’s bowlers conceded 11 wides between them. Dushmantha Chameera went for 53 off his four overs, Dunith Wellalage for 51 off three. Wanindu Hasaranga was the only one to keep his economy in single figures, and he still went at 8.50. England were also docked a fielder inside the circle for the final over, punishment for a slow over rate, at a point in the evening when the argument had been over for an hour.

Thirty-two for three, and then it got worse

Chasing 255 asks a team to score at 12.75 an over for twenty overs. Sri Lanka’s powerplay produced 32 runs and cost them three wickets, which is the two things you cannot do at once.

Sonny Baker bowled four overs for 12 runs and took three wickets, and one of those overs was a maiden. A maiden in a chase of 255 is not a thing that should exist. Pathum Nissanka went for 12, Kamil Mishara for 10, Lahiru Udara for 5, Asalanka for 10. At 76 for 7 in the twelfth over Sri Lanka had seven batters back in the pavilion and 179 runs still to find.

Dunith Wellalage top-scored with 33 off 21 and Dasun Shanaka made 24 off 14, both after the game had gone. Jamie Overton and Liam Dawson took two apiece. Eshan Malinga was 13 not out off 5 when Chameera was bowled to end it in the nineteenth over, 135 all out, and Brook collected the player-of-the-match award for the innings that had made the rest of it academic.

Two matches left

The second T20I is at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Thursday, with the third in Manchester, and then a one-day series that starts on 22 September. Asalanka has a week to find a top order. Five of Sri Lanka’s eleven were out in single figures at Southampton and no stand in the innings was worth more than 21, which is not a batting collapse so much as an innings that never started. The bowling is the harder problem. Five of the six who bowled went at better than ten an over. Hasaranga, the exception, finished with 1 for 34 and was comfortably the best of them, which tells you most of what you need to know about the other five.

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