Date-stamped : 24 Mar95 - 18:37
England `A' v Sri Lanka, Second One-day
Old Trafford, 15 August 1991

Sri Lanka hit form to gain a Lord`s fillip - Richard Streeton

OLD TRAFFORD (England A won toss): Sri Lanka beat  England  A  by
three wickets.

COMPARED with their defeat the previous day, Sri Lanka were  vir-
tually  unrecognisable  yesterday when they beat England A in the
second 55-over, one-day match here. They batted and  bowled  with
greater  purpose  and  deservedly gained a victory that will give
them a fillip before they play England in a Test match at  Lord`s
starting next Thursday.

Sri Lanka, set to make 213, won with 13 balls to spare  after   a
scintillating eighth-wicket stand between Atapattu and Ratnayake.
These two added 53 in seven overs, punishing Such, Hick and  Pick
mercilessly in the final stages.

Ratnayake, showing no signs of wrenched neck  muscles   he   sus-
tained  in  a collision in the field that had forced him to leave
for treatment, drove Hick and Such  for  enormous  sixes in   the
rousing finish.

After a poor  start,  the  Sri  Lankans  eliminated   the   loose
strokes   that   brought  their  downfall  in the previous match.
They still needed 66 with 15 overs left, 53 from ten and 23  from
five but  kept their heads. An important factor was that the Eng-
land A spinners were unable to obtain the same amount of turn  on
a help- ful pitch as their opponents` slow bowlers had done.

Sri Lanka soon lost Kuruppu and Gurusinha,  who   both   followed
outswingers,  before  Hathurusinghe  and Mahanama settled down to
bat with great resolution at a time when the light was  dreadful.
Hathurusinghe  was  caught at short fine leg as he swept just be-
fore tea but Jayasuriya attacked shrewdly before Mahanama was run
out.

Jayasuriya eventually holed out to mid-wicket  and   Tillekeratne
and  Ramanayake  did  not  stay  long  but Atapattu and Ratnayake
wrested back the initiative with their audacious batting.

For the second time, England A batted first and,  throughout  the
innings,  there  were  other  similarities  to the previous day`s
match. As on Wednesday, only  one  Englishman  passed  50.   This
time  it   was Ward, rather than Fairbrother, who was rested. The
unfortunate  Hick  again failed and there  were  repetitions   of
people  dismissed  after  getting a sight of the ball. Once again
Sri Lanka bowled tightly and 40 of their  overs  were  bowled  by
spinners.

Ward was fifth out at 173 and for 48 overs had been   forced   to
curb  his  attacking  instincts.  He faced 131 balls and hit only
four fours but accumulated no fewer than 41 singles,  an  indica-
tion  of how well the Sri Lankans bowled to their field placings.
The only risky shots came when he lifted several sweeps   against
the left-arm spinners, Anurasiri and Jayasuriya.

It was this stroke that finally got him out   when   Madurasinghe
took  a  good,  running  catch  at long leg. This was one of four
wickets Anurasiri claimed with some skilful bowling.

Hick faced only six balls before he had his leg   stump   knocked
out  of  the  ground by Ratnayake against the first ball he faced
from the fast-medium bowler. Ratnayake was brought back as   soon
as  Hick  came in. Hick moved across his stumps, shaping to steer
the ball to the leg side, but it came back and bowled him  behind
his  legs.  Soon  afterwards,  Ratnayake retired hurt and Kuruppu
took over the gloves to allow Tillekeratne to bowl seven overs of
creditable off breaks.

Source :: The Times
<END> Contributed by Gihan (Gihan.N.Wikramanayake@cm.cf.ac.uk)