London, June 12: A buoyant England would eye the semifinal slot but it would be a battle of survival for Sri Lanka, after a narrow opening loss, when the two sides clash in their second Group A match of the ICC Champions Trophy here tomorrow.
The two teams have made contrasting starts to their campaign in the eight-team event, which is being played for the last time.
While England thrashed defending champions Australia by 48 runs, Sri Lanka lost by a wicket against New Zealand in a low-scoring thriller.
Going purely by how the two teams performed in their respective openers, England would start favourites tomorrow at the Oval.
And a big reason for that would be their fine batting line-up, which delivered to perfection against Australia. Most of their big guns got confidence-boosting runs under their belt in the lung-opener.
Starting with skipper Alastair Cook, England’s batsmen expectedly seemed at ease with the conditions which are considered challenging for tourists.
Ian Bell missed a hundred by nine runs while Jonathan Trott and Ravi Bopara got near half-century scores against the Aussie bowlers.
In contrast, Sri Lanka’s batsmen flopped miserably against the Kiwis. Eight of them failed to touch the double-digit mark with three of them falling for noughts.(PTI)
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