Six months ago, England saw a captaincy and coaching reshuffle with Nat Sciver-Brunt taking over from Heather Knight and Charlotte Edwards replacing Jon Lewis. After a mixed start to the new era, they now seem to be finding their feet after registering their third straight win of the 2025 ODI World Cup, beating Sri Lanka by 89 runs at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo to go on top of the points table.
Sri Lanka were playing their first match in 11 days, and captain Chamari Athapaththu won the toss and opted to bowl. Her spinners combined superbly to take 6/196 in 41 overs to restrict England, but the batters did not complement the bowling, as they were all out for 164 in 45.3 overs.
Chasing 254 on a turning pitch, against the quartet of Sophie Ecclestone, Charlie Dean, Linsey Smith, and Alice Capsey, Sri Lanka never found any sustained momentum in their innings. Hasini Perera and Harshitha Samarawickrama put on 58 runs for the second wicket, but Sophie Ecclestone removed the duo as well as Kavisha Dilhari in the space of four overs to peg the co-hosts back. Athapaththu, who had to leave the field due to a calf injury in the sixth over, returned to bat at the fall of Samarawickrama’s wicket.
But when Ecclestone removed her with arguably the ball of the evening, which drew Athapaththu into the drive before beating her in the air and off the pitch to knock back the stumps, for 15, the writing was on the wall for Sri Lanka. The lower-order tried their best to delay the inevitable, but England closed out the game with 4.2 overs left.
Batting first for the first time in the tournament, England lost both Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont cheaply inside the Powerplay. Heather Knight and Nat Sciver-Brunt put on 60 vital runs against an array of Sri Lankan spinners. After Knight’s dismissal for 23, the onus fell on Sciver-Brunt to rebuild the England innings.
Facing up to a quintet of Sri Lankan spinners, the England skipper put on a masterclass in how to keep the scoreboard ticking over by taking the singles and combining them with the occasional boundary. Sciver-Brunt was given a life on 3 when Udeshika Prabodhani dropped a regulation catch at midwicket off Ranaweera.
The right-hander made Sri Lanka pay for that error, controlling the innings clinically by putting on short yet crucial stands with Sophia Dunkley (37 runs) and Dean (38 runs), and eventually getting to her 10th ODI hundred. It was also her fifth ton in ODI World Cups – the most for any batter in the tournament’s history. Her run-a-ball 117 had nine fours and only 46 dot balls.
Ranaweera was again the pick of the bowlers again on Saturday with figures of 3/33 in 10 overs. However, Sciver-Brunt’s brilliance outclassed her exploits, ensuring that England maintained their unbeaten run in the competition.
Brief Scores: England 253/9 in 50 overs (Sciver-Brunt 117, Beaumont 32; Ranaweera 3/33) beat Sri Lanka 164 all out in 45.4 overs (Samarawickrama 33, Ecclestone 4-17, Dean 2/43, Sciver-Brunt 2/25) by 89 runs
Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.
