his post.)
1st over: Sri Lanka 5-0 (Perera 1, Gunathilaka 4) Yep Willey it is, Perera on strike first up and there’s just the tiniest soupçon of swing away from the left-hander for the left-armer. A sharp single to mid-off from the second ball brings the first run of the day – Morgan had a shy at the stumps but (a) he missed and (b) Perera was safely in at the non-striker’s end. Four from the final ball: Willey offering just a bit too much length and Gunathilaka cracking his drive through extra-cover.
Here we go. Players are out. It looks like Willey, rather than Woakes, will open the bowling this time around.
According to Mike Atherton it’s a very hard, bouncy pitch, which makes me wonder how close England were to including Steven Finn here. Athers reports that the groundsman says the pitch is very similar to the one on which England scored 408 for nine against New Zealand last year.
The teams in full
England
AD Hales, JJ Roy, JE Root, EJG Morgan*, JM Bairstow, JC Buttler†, MM Ali, CR Woakes, DJ Willey, AU Rashid, LE Plunkett
Sri Lanka
MDKJ Perera, MD Gunathilaka, BKG Mendis, LD Chandimal†, WU Tharanga, AD Mathews*, S Randiv, MF Maharoof, S Prasanna, N Pradeep, RAS Lakmal
Toss and team news
Angelo Mathews calls heads and heads it is. Sri Lanka will bat first on a flat track under sunny skies. Shanaka misses out and Randiv, the extra spinner comes in. Mathews is not fit to bowl himself but will play as a batsman.
Eoin Morgan says he would also have batted first but isn’t too disappointed as there might be a bit of rain around later tonight. England are unchanged.
Breaking news: Test Match Special are reporting that Angelo Mathews is in fact fit to lead Sri Lanka today.
Podcast! Will and your OBOer later today, Vish, are back with another edition of the Freelance Cricket Club. Give it a listen, they’re good.
Bad news for Sri Lanka here:
BREAKING: Doubts are emerging about Angelo Matthews taking part in today’s game. #ENGvSL pic.twitter.com/wCs4LRxaFp
— Edgbaston (@edgbaston) June 24, 2016
Do feel free to get in touch, by the way. I know that Guardian readers want to do nothing more today than cheer on the English playing cricket, with “Waitrose” emblazoned across their chests while Ian Botham beams on proudly.
Also they can take an unassailable 13-3 lead in the super series. Anyhow, it’s dan.lucas@theguardian.com on email or @DanLucas86 on Twitter. Or if you like, there’s a new You are the Umpire.
Preamble
Afternoon/evening, folks. Let’s try that again shall? The best cricket team in Europe England and Sri Lanka contrived to “do a Euro 2016” and ensure that nobody lost in the first ODI at Trent Bridge, so this series remains tighter than a Nels Cline guitar solo going into this second match at Edgbaston.
Both sides had similar problems in the first match: namely a top order that showed all the strength of a certain currency today, which meant Sri Lanka set a below-par total and England barely managed to match it. Areas to improve and all that. The good news for England is that Angelo Mathews, who pretty much rescued Sri Lanka’s innings last time around, is only rated as having a 70% chance of being fit for this match after his hamstring strain flared up in Nottingham. The bad news for the match is, well, that.
It’s been pretty wet around Edgbaston for the last few days, although it’s traditionally a good batting surface and the skies are expected to be pretty clear all day. Expect similar conditions to Nottingham, then.
Play begins at 2pm BST, or 7.30pm Sri Lanka time. Toss and team news half an hour or so before that.
Hello. Our over-by-over coverage of the second one-day international in the five-match series will begin in due course. Here’s Ali Martin’s report on the first game, which ended in a dramatic tie at Trent Bridge:
Liam Plunkett, at No10, slotted the final ball of a game that looked dead and buried straight down the ground for six, allowing Morgan’s side to match the 286 runs scored by the tourists in a moment of pure last-gasp drama that followed an almighty recovery job.
Chasing under lights, on the ground where they memorably cruised to a target of 350 against New Zealand a year ago, England had crumbled to 82 for six by the end of the 18th over, leaving Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes staring at a mountain of runs.
The pair stepped up, their stand of 138 in 24.3 overs taking the game deeper than anyone expected with Buttler’s 93 from 99 balls eclipsed only by an unbeaten 95 from Woakes, who recovered from the loss of his partner to a stunning catch in the deep by Dasun Shanaka in the 43rd over to steer the game to the final six deliveries.
In that last over Woakes and Plunkett needed 14 for the win, and while a scrambled three off the penultimate ball – aided by a misfield – effectively ruled out a victory, the junior partner held his nerve to send the seamer Nuwan Pradeep into the night sky and share the spoils.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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