7th over: Sri Lanka 39-0 (Nissanka 20, Kamindu Mendis 18) Josh Tongue’s third ball is too straight and put away over midwicket by Kamindu Mendis. The rest is dots. Okay, are dots.
6th over: Sri Lanka 35-0 (Nissanka 20, Kamindu Mendis 14) Another good over from Atkinson, just a single and a leg-bye. He has figures of 3-0-11-0.
5th over: Sri Lanka 33-0 (Nissanka 19, Kamindu Mendis 14) Archer’s third over disappears for 17! The scoring started when Nissanka blootered a length ball over midwicket for six; it ended when Kamindu Mendis hooked his first six later in the over. Shots!
4th over: Sri Lanka 16-0 (Nissanka 12, Kamindu Mendis 4) Nissanka pull-drags Atkinson past short third for his second boundary. This looks like a really good pitch, so it’s important that England take early wickets. Sri Lanka know that and have started fairly sedately. Fifty overs is a long time, okay?
3rd over: Sri Lanka 11-0 (Nissanka 7, Kamindu Mendis 4) Archer ends another very accurate over with a bouncer to Kamindu Mendis, who takes on the hook and top-edges it for four. After eight dot balls, all at Archer’s end, he needed the oxygen of runs.
2nd over: Sri Lanka 6-0 (Nissanka 6, Kamindu Mendis 0) A terrific start from Gus Atkinson, who gets a bit of movement and beats Nissanka with his first and fourth deliveries. Nissanka responds by squirting a square drive for four. It wasn’t perfectly timed but Headingley has such fast outfield.
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1st over: Sri Lanka 1-0 (Nissanka 1, Kamindu Mendis 0) Headingley is usually a great place to bat, so Sri Lanka will probably want upwards of 300. Fifty overs is a long time*, which means Kamindu Mendis can take a bit of time to get his eye in. He plays out five consecutive dot balls during an accurate opening over from Archer.
* Drink
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Jofra Archer has the new ball in hand; Pathum Nissanka is waiting to face him. Let’s play darts.
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“Nooooo!”
There was something about Dan Lawrence’s pained groan at Edgbaston in England’s first innings of the third Test against Pakistan. For a split second it looked as if he might plunge his bat into the turf like some tormented Norse warrior. His stumps had already been flattened by his own hand, an attempt to run the ball down past point off Mohammad Imran had ended in him hacking an innocuous delivery emphatically on to them.
The stump microphone amplified Lawrence’s anguished reaction, the noise emanating from his mouth oscillating somewhere between the visceral howl of treading on an upturned plug and the disappointed yelp of missing the last train home. He had been bowled for 65 and another chance of a first Test century had gone begging.
Test batters will tell you how they didn’t feel they “belonged” until they had made a century. That the longer they had to wait to cross the Rubicon of three figures the more it weighed them down. Lawrence has played 17 Tests for England since his first call-up in 2021. It has been a career of fits and starts through no fault of his own; in the past five years he has batted at Nos 7, 6, 5, 4 and 3 as well as a doomed stint as a makeshift opener. It’s those starts that will eat away at him, though.
South Africa’s Matthew Breetzke has continued the spectacular start to his ODI career. He’s currently 84 not out against Australia in Durban; you can follow that game with Martin Pegan and Geoff Lemon.
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To reach for the career stats on Cricinfo is no way to go about it. This is a full-on YouTube job: boil the kettle, load up those spells at Headingley, St Lucia and the rest, and take in the whippy, absurd, mesmerising sight of perhaps the fastest English bowler there has ever been. That’s probably the best way to remember Mark Wood’s career.
Tuesday’s announcement of his international retirement was coming from the moment Wood hobbled out of the Ashes last December, the series opener his only appearance. That always felt like the last act, one he rushed back for after surgery on his left knee earlier that year, and the game moves on fast. England’s seam stocks look healthy across formats, with Jofra Archer there to ramp it up when required. It’s a sore point that Archer and Wood played just two Tests together: one without supporters during the 2020 Covid-bubble summer, the other Wood’s farewell at Perth.
The 36-year-old leaves with 119 Test wickets at 30.8 and 80 one-day international wickets at 40.8, figures that need dissecting. He sparkled when it mattered in 50-over cricket, taking 18 wickets in the 2019 World Cup triumph, and there is a clear before-and-after with the red ball. Having made his debut in 2015, it took nearly four years for it all to click together, only after Wood lengthened his run-up and was told by Trevor Bayliss that he wanted to see a bit more “mongrel” from his quick.
Wood responded by clocking 95mph on the way to his first Test five-wicket haul, against West Indies in February 2019 at the age of 29, setting up his own Benjamin Button tale. From that Test in St Lucia, his 13th, until his last, he averaged 27, all while hurling the ball with a lithe frame at obscene, unhealthy speeds.
Team news
England are unchanged. Sri Lanka bring in Eshan Malinga for Dushmantha Chameera.
England Banton, Duckett, Root, Brook (c), Buttler (wk), Jacks, Rehan, Overton, Atkinson, Archer, Tongue.
Sri Lanka Nissanka, Kamindu Mendis, Kusal Mendis (c/wk), Rathnayeke, Asalanka, Liyanage, Wellalage, Colombage, Malinga, Fernando, Madushanka.
Sri Lanka win the toss and bat first
It’s a lovely autumnal day at Headingley. “Looks like a really good wicket,” says Kusal Mendis. “We have to put a score on the board.”
Harry Brook says England would have bowled, so yah boo sucks.
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There’s an orgy of live cricket at Guardian Unlimited today. As well as this game, we have:
* Spoiler: Warwickshire.
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First ODI report
Harry Brook had called on his England players to continue the “high-octane” cricket witnessed during their clean sweep in the Twenty20s but this latest victory over Sri Lanka in the first one-day international was more of a slow-burn affair.
Gone was the neck-arching carnage of the previous week and in its place, on a tired end-of-season surface, England were bowled out for 265 in 48.1 overs. Brook top-scored with 67 under a warm September sun, before his bowlers rolled the tourists for 176 to take a 1-0 lead into Thursday’s second match at Headingley.
Familiarity with conditions doubtless played its part and Sri Lanka, on the wrong side of the toss, never truly felt in the hunt. For Brook it was an 11th victory as England’s ODI captain, nudging him into credit after 10 defeats and continuing what has been a quiet resurgence in the format this year.
Preamble
It’s been a while*, you know. Since England won three ODI series in a row; it’s been a while. The last time it happened was in 2023, just before the World Cup, when everything was going to be alright on the night.
That grisly title defence was the start of a desperate few years in ODI cricket, but there are signs that Brendon McCullum is giving England the kiss of life in a third format. If they beat Sri Lanka at Headingley today – and it’ll be an eye-widener if they don’t – England will complete a third series victory of 2026.
At this stage they are no more than dangerous outsiders for next year’s World Cup, but even that would have been unimaginable during the annus horribilis of 2025. England lost 11 out of 15 ODIs and their captain was almost ironed out by a bouncer the night before a game. Off and especially on the field, it feels like a long time ago.
* If these four words made your brain jump straight to a Linoleum song, you win an ephemeral trip back to 1997.
