Give that man a swimming pool. Pimp the team bus. Rejig the semi-final calculations. At the end of a week in which Sri Lanka’s players have been reduced to whingeing about the backstage arrangements, and on a day when England’s opening bowlers confirmed their own status as the leanest, most compelling cutting edge at this World Cup, there was something thrilling about the sight of Sri Lanka’s own 35-year-old white-ball marvel taking his team to victory in Leeds.
As the sun dipped over the edge of the Emerald stand at close of play, Lasith Malinga could be seen at the boundary edge being politely mobbed by a crowd of supporters. For half an hour he posed for selfies, hand clasps and back-slaps, sucking the sweetness from the moment in a way that has, as ever in the tangled depths of Sri Lankan cricket, its own wider significance.
Malinga’s status has often been a little confused. He has been a popular hero in Sri Lanka, but never an establishment darling, never entirely untroubled in his public portrayal. There has been unkind comment in the media on the swell of his burgeoning gut and the money earned in overseas leagues. He has enjoyed the familiar dance of captaincy, lost captaincy and the ill will of those in power. Dismissed once as a brash interloper, in later life Malinga has been cast by some as a mercenary and gadabout.
In reality he is, of course, neither. You don’t get this good, or succeed from such small-town beginnings without a cold hard dedication to your craft. And as ever it was Malinga who changed this game, taking a listing team to victory over the favourites with two fine spells of bowling.
Plus there was that point of contrast. On a bright, fresh, chilly Headingley day, Jofra Archer and Mark Wood had produced another performance of sustained high-end fast bowling to decorate the first half of this game.
It is always surprising how teams can change their points of emphasis. England were so confident in their batting order leading into the World Cup they could afford to be coy about including Archer at all. And yet this World Cup match was ultimately set up by their bowlers, then lost by their batsmen, who made a steaming, bubbling hash of chasing down Sri Lanka’s 233.
There were limp prods, brainless swipes, and the sense of a muscular lineup unable to change down a gear and grind out a low winning total. Most of all there was Malinga. It is 13 years now since an English team first faced the master of the round-arm fling. They still can’t play him.
In the warm-ups here Malinga had strolled up, arm wanging out behind him and knocked down a single rubber stump four times in a row on the half-volley. As England chased he bowled 82mph in his jumper and picked up a pair of edges and a pair of classic full-slinger lbws. James Vince, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Jos Buttler were the flower of England’s batting ripped out, all deceived by that masterly, dipping, veering command of length and line.
Malinga remains a sui generis modern great, the boy from the palm scrub who swam in the sea to build his strength, who came to the city as a country nobody; who is still basically bowling a tennis ball on the beach; but who did for the most heavily resourced team in ODI history here.
England will right themselves from this defeat. Bad batting days can happen. They play Australia at Lord’s on Tuesday, another welcome spark in the middle overs of this poorly structured tournament. England’s best moments here came when their own fast bowlers were in action as a pair. It has been the surprise of the last few weeks, the way the bowling attack, so often a supporting cast for that adrenal batting lineup, has become a sword and not just a shield
For the fifth time in six games England’s bowlers restricted the opposition to less than 300.
Archer and Wood once again bowled with relentless toe scorching, throat-searing heat, the kind of shared speed from both ends that is physically and mentally draining to face.
With six wickets between them in Sri Lanka’s innings England’s two quicks now have 27 wickets at this World Cup to 26 for Mitch Starc and Pat Cummins. The pace-off at Lord’s on Tuesday takes on a little extra urgency now, in a game England really could do with winning
Sri Lanka had decided to bat first here. They were three for two, 14 balls into the day, Chris Woakes providing a reminder of his own role in that pace attack. The last four opening partnerships to face the Archer-Woakes combo have stretched to 3, 4, 4 and 8. But even before Malinga’s turn there was a ripple of defiance. Avishka Fernando, a 21-year-old from Wadduwa, batted with a sparkling sense of vim to get to 49 off 39 balls, taking 24 runs off Archer in that spell, all of them stunning boundary shots.
Angelo Mathews came into his game with nine runs from the first three weeks of his World Cup innings, but his half-century in midinnings was stately, proper, assiduous. It proved vital in the context of a limp batting attempt to chase, although not before Malinga had had his decisive say.