England are closing in on sealing a semi final place in the Cricket World Cup and their next assignment comes against Sri Lanka at Headingley, Leeds on Friday.

England:

England made it 4 wins from 5 matches when they crushed Afghanistan by 150 runs at Old Trafford on Tuesday.

Batting first England, who were without the injured Jason Roy, posted 398/6 with Bairstow (90), Root (88) and Eoin Morgan (148) doing the damage. It was a special innings from Morgan who crunched a record of 17 sixes in his innings off just 71 balls. In reply Afghanistan finished on 247/8 with Archer (3/52), Rashid (3/66) and Wood (2/40) the wicket takers.

With another boost to a healthy net run rate England are not far away from the semi finals. Earlier results include a 104 run victory over the Proteas at the Oval, a 14 run defeat to Pakistan in Nottingham, a 106 run win over Bangladesh in Cardiff and an 8 wicket victory over West Indies at Southampton.

England are currently 2/1 to win the tournament whilst India (19/10) have shortened on the back of their unbeaten start.

Joe Root is leading run scorer for England with 367, Eoin Morgan has 249 and Jonny Bairstow has 218. Jofra Archer is leading wicket taker with 12, Mark Wood has 9 and, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid have 5.

This was how England lined up against Afghanistan last time out.

James Vince, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (capt), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood

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Sri Lanka:

Sri Lanka’s most recent match saw them go down to Australia by 87 runs at The Oval on Saturday. Batting first Australia put on 334/7 but Sri Lanka came out firing in the chase. Dimuth Karunaratne (97) and Kusal Perera (52) put on 115 for the first stick in just 15.3 overs. That was Sri Lanka’s best spell of the tournament so far but the innings fell away with no other batsmen getting past 30 runs, they were all out for 247 and now have an overall record of 1 win, 2 defeats 2 no results.

Sri Lanka’s matches, against Pakistan and Bangladesh were both washed out without a ball being bowled whilst in their first 2 games they were crushed by 10 wickets against New Zealand before getting the better of Afghanistan with a 34 run (DLS) victory at Cardiff.

Sri Lanka are now trading at around 33/1 to reach the semi finals.

Dimuth Karunaratne is leading run scorer for Sri Lanka with 179 runs and Kusal Perera has made 159. With the ball Nuwan Pradeep and Malinga have both taken 4 wickets.

This was how Sri Lanka lined up against Australia last time out.

Dimuth Karunaratne (capt), Kusal Perera (wk), Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dhananjaya de Silva, Thisara Perera, Isuru Udana, Milinda Siriwardana, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Pradeep

Head to Head

The teams have met 74 times with England winning 36, Sri Lanka have won 35 with 1 tie and 2 no results.

The teams last met in a 5 match series in Sri Lanka in October 2018 and England won 3-1 with 1 match washed out.

The Betting, Click here for all markets

England 1/10

Sri Lanka 13/2

Note prices quoted are correct at the time of publication but are subject to change.

Verdict:

It looks very difficult to make a case for a surprise and for a betting interest we look to the Player Performance market (1 point per run, 20 per wicket, 10 per catch) although our pick is less than obvious.

Isuru Udana of Sri Lanka picked up a couple of wickets against Australia last weekend and whilst we haven’t seen much of him with the bat in this tournament he does have the ability to hit a long ball down the order. The chances are Udana will be called upon in the Sri Lankan innings and the current quote of 29.5 therefore looks beatable.

Suggested Bets:

Player Performances, Isuru Udana Over 29.5 at 9/10

Click here for all CWC markets.

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