Will Jacks took three wickets in the last over, and England beat Sri Lanka by 89
Jacks’s maiden one-day five-wicket haul finished Sri Lanka off at Chester-le-Street, hours after his unbeaten 46 had dragged England to 265. England lead the three-match series 1-0.
Sep 23, 2026
Will Jacks had never taken five wickets in a one-day international before Tuesday. Three of them arrived in the over that ended Sri Lanka’s innings at Chester-le-Street, and England had the series opener by 89 runs.
England were 182 for 4, and then they were 199 for 6
Harry Brook won the toss and batted, which on a surface he later called awkward was the braver of the two calls. For a while it looked like the right one.
Joe Root went first, bowled by Sachindu Colombage in the 23rd over with England 135 for 3. The leg-spinner was playing his first one-day international and finished with 3 for 44, Root and Jos Buttler among them, which is a reasonable way to start a career. Root had made 44 and the stand with Brook was worth 68.
Brook carried on to 67 before carving Dushmantha Chameera to deep cover, and England were 182 for 4. Buttler went at 196. Rehan Ahmed went at 199. Three wickets for 17 runs, and a side that had been heading somewhere near 300 was now a lower-order problem.
Jacks solved it. He made 46 not out off 47 balls, including four fours in a row off Chameera, and England were bowled out for 265 with 11 balls of the innings unused.
Seven overs, 22 runs, five wickets
Sri Lanka started their chase properly enough. Pathum Nissanka reached 27 before Josh Tongue had him caught, and after that the innings stopped moving. Pavan Rathnayake used 23 balls for 13 runs. Kusal Mendis made 42 from 60 and was the last batter at the crease who looked settled.
Then Jacks came on. He had Charith Asalanka lbw for 1, then Mendis lbw sweeping, and the tail had nothing to hold on to. Dunith Wellalage was the one Sri Lankan swinging freely, five fours and two sixes in 36 balls for 45, and Jacks had him caught too.
Asitha Fernando went for a duck. Dilshan Madushanka was bowled without scoring. Sri Lanka finished 176 all out in 37 overs with Chameera stranded on 7, and Jacks had 5 for 22 from seven overs, a maiden five-wicket haul, the player-of-the-match award and the second-highest score in England’s innings.
Mendis knows where the problem is
Sri Lanka’s captain did not hide behind the pitch afterwards. He pointed at his middle order and at how long they took to find the boundary, which is the honest reading of an innings in which three batters passed 20 and nobody reached fifty.
Brook’s version was shorter. He said the surface was not an easy one and that adapting to conditions is what he wants this side to be good at, then spent longer talking about Jacks than about his own 67.
Two to go, and one sweep already gone
England lead the three-match series 1-0. The second one-day international is at Headingley on Thursday, 24 September, and the third is at The Oval on Sunday, 27 September.
Sri Lanka arrived in the north-east having just been beaten 3-0 in the Twenty20 series, a whitewash that put England back on top of the ICC T20I rankings. That makes four defeats in four white-ball matches on this tour. They have two games left to stop it becoming a second clean sweep, and both of them come against a bowler who has just worked out what he can do with the ball.