England cannot afford to be half-baked against Sri Lanka at the Cake Tin

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/feb/27/england-sri-lanka-cake-tin-cricket-world-cup

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Such is the nature of this World Cup that, theoretically at least, England and Sri Lanka play a match that neither really should need to win to progress to the quarter-finals. But anyone who has been watching the sterling performances being put in so far by Ireland, Afghanistan and Scotland will understand that those nations below the top eight no longer represent the free points they once did. There has been a shift: this is a match neither side will even want to contemplate losing.

Progress has been stuttering so far on both fronts. England were outplayed by Australia and annihilated by New Zealand in such quick time that any preparation they had done under the lights of Wellington’s Westpac Stadium was rendered irrelevant so quickly was the damage done. Against Scotland, in Christchurch, Moeen Ali’s batting and Steven Finn’s bowling kept them ahead of the game.

Sri Lanka suffered a heavy defeat to New Zealand in the opening match of the tournament in Christchurch and then came within a four-run whisker of losing to Afghanistan, saved largely by Mahela Jayawardene’s majestic century, before Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara filled their boots against Bangladesh. There are signs that the two teams are starting to rouse themselves, mindful perhaps of Richie Richardson’s tongue-in-cheek words about West Indies not wanting to peak too early.

There is a familiarity to it all. Since the back end of November, England have played 15 ODIs and the first seven of those were against Sri Lanka in that country. The result of that series – Sri Lanka winning it by five matches to two – is largely irrelevant when it comes to this match given the entirely different conditions it will be played in.

It is true to say that had Alastair Cook opted to take a break by missing it rather than using it as a team bonding session, he would almost certainly still be leading the squad here now. Such is fate.

Beyond Cook three further players who featured in that series – Ravi Bopara, Chris Jordan and James Tredwell – will not be playing at the Cake Tin.

It is just over a week since the carnage inflicted on them by Tim Southee and Brendon McCullum, and the cheers and jeers that reverberated round the ground still carry a ghostly resonance no matter how hard they try to move on. Eoin Morgan says England have practised well and can have only learned from the experience, as they will have done from the mauling at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

On Thursday they went to Karori Park where, according to the ECB’s England Twitter feed, they “replicated game-day with scenario cricket” or, as old pros call it, middle practice. “Any practice you can have in the middle is worth 10 times any nets,” Morgan said. “I think one advantage we have is having had a game at the Cake Tin and certainly one lesson we have learned from there is that the ball swung throughout the first innings. Preparing for the possibility of that happening again we did quite a lot of work on that scenario and the boys got a lot out of it.”

Why the fact that a ball only 13 overs old – the point at which Southee returned for his devastating second spell – should still swing is odd given the lush outfield and the fact it had hardly been pummelled. Nor did it go round corners but rather did enough to slide past the outside edge.

England are hoping that history will repeat itself, although again they have to remember that this is not a day-night game so that what happened in the first innings against New Zealand might repeat itself throughout the match this time.

As usual England will not finalise their XI (or at least announce it) until the morning of the match. The way in which Moeen played in Christchurch camouflaged the struggle from the middle order until Morgan added some impetus later. There will at least have been consideration given to some small tinkering, with maybe Alex Hales replacing Gary Ballance either at three or as an opener with Ian Bell dropping down one.

This, though, is an idea that appears to have been dismissed by Morgan who offered an endorsement of Ballance’s qualities: “What I will say is that we are three games into a World Cup and Gary has come into the team four games in all, including the final warm-up, and scored 70 runs, playing against two of the toughest sides in the World Cup and dragging one on against Scotland. So, in my eyes, he’s been a bit unlucky.

“He hasn’t played a lot of cricket over the last month but Hales has been the same and Ravi also, so there is that balance to strike between who is the best in order for us to win.

“But, regarding Gary, I think any criticism that goes his way at the moment is unfair. He is a fantastic cricketer and a guy with a huge amount of potential.”