ICC Cricket World Cup 2019: Twitter Erupts as Sri Lanka Cause Major Upset to Hosts England

The 27th match if the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 saw arguably the greatest upset of the tournament so far with Sri Lanka beating favourites England in a nail biting encounter at Headingley.

The pitch wasn’t an easy one to score off, with the slowness of the track impacting batsmen from both sides. Sri Lanka had a shoddy start to their ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 innings as they lost their captain Dimuth Karunaratne and Kushal Perera within the first three overs.

But then, the 18 year old Avishka Fernando provided the much needed counterattack as he scored a brusque 49 before perishing to a short ball. The wickets kept tumbling but veteran Angelo Mathews kept the innings together with a hard fought 90 not out, and took Sri Lanka to 232 in their 50 overs.

The second innings was all about Lasith Malinga. He picked up Jonny Bairstow and James Vince in quick succession and opened the flood gates. This was followed by a good partnership between captain Eoin Morgan and Joe Root before Morgan was caught and bowled with a stunning catch by Isuru Udana.

The wickets kept falling as all the bowlers pitched in leading to a lower order collapse with Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer and Adil Rashid succumbing to the wily off spin of Dhananjaya de Silva.

Ben Stokes almost stole the game away with a phenomenal 82 to anchor the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 innings and a late flourish but it was just too much for the all rounder as Mark wood couldn’t negotiate the last ball of the 47th over, nicking a delivery from Nuwan Pradeep to Kusal Perera behind the wickets.

The ground was on its feet as a major upset, but more importantly a very close match drew to and end, splitting the points table wide open and leaving England with a lot to think about ahead of their last 3 games against India, Australia and New Zealand. Sri Lanka meanwhile will feel they have a solid chance to capitalise and qualify for the semis, as they will aim to move into the top 4.

The World Cup has thrown many surprises with Bangladesh’s victory over the Windies and now this, which just proves that pressure plays the most important role at the biggest stage in world cricket and that no time should be taken lightly.

The second leg of the league stage promises to have much more drama as we see the top teams look to qualify for a top 4 spot.

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