So after all those nail-biters, England finally bowed out thoroughly outplayed by Sri Lanka. Too tired, too long a tour, too many injuries, too hot, too unlucky,...? No, on the day Sri Lanka were simply too good for Andrew Strauss and his team.
England won the toss and you couldn't argue with the choice to bat first. Jonathan Trott scored yet another solid innings but apart from Eoin Morgan, his team mates simply couldn't score enough runs. Indeed, Morgan himself survived three dropped catches. Strauss looked particularly poor against Tillekeratne Dilshan's usually innocuous spin, and while Bell and Bopara found some gaps in the field for ones and twos, boundaries were in very short supply. Instead of fours and sixes, the batting Powerplay merely resulted in wickets falling, although setting Sri Lanka a target of 230 under the lights in Colombo should have posed a real challenge.
Tim Bresnan immediately found some swing, bowling a maiden to Upul Tharanga, although there were two leg byes in that opening over. Like the home side, Strauss also opted for a spinner at the start, in the form of Graeme Swann. Once Tharanga successively swung him for six, the captain went for a succession of bowling changes to disrupt the rhythm of Dilshan and Tharanga. By the twelfth over, six bowlers had been tried, yet the openers sailed serenely on, picking up singles and the occasional boundary to frustrate the fielders and delight the crowd. Unlike in the South Africa and West Indies games there was to be no horrific batting collapse. After all, these two had already scored a century apiece in a single match (against Zimbabwe) and once Dilshan had reached his hundred and the target was fast approaching with loads of overs to spare, he even had the cheek to toy with bowlers and allow his partner to reach his own century with the winning boundary off Tremlett.
Of course England were disappointed but to be fair they achieved what their ODI rankings indicated. I did tip them for the final because I felt their experience of winning the big games in this tournament would stand them in good stead, especially when Sri Lanka had not played themselves in very much, partly because of the openers' power and also the rain-curtailed group game against Australia.
So now we have the very real prospect of an all-Asia final for the first time. Much will be written about the India v Pakistan match, and the 'fix' allegations really don't help either side. However, the Sri Lanka-New Zealand semi-final is also very intriguing. They met at the same stage in the 2007 World Cup. At Kingston, Sri Lanka opted to bat first, with that man Tharanga scoring a brisk 73 and skipper Jayawardene a brilliant unbeaten 115. Dilshan came in at number six to strike a useful supportive 30 in 27 balls. All the Black Cap bowlers came in for some stick, including the likely 2011 names of Vettori, Oram and Styris. When batting, the old inconsistency reared its head again; no player reached fifty and six were dismissed in single figures, as New Zealand were bowled out 81 runs short with fifty balls remaining. Vaas is no longer there, but Sangakkara can still call on Murali, Malinga and Dilshan to keep the batsmen in check.
Sri Lanka must be favourites but their opponents have already proved they can cause an upset or two, whether with some stunning strokeplay or cunning medium pace or spin bowling. For what it's worth, I'll predict a Pakistan v Sri Lanka final. So as a result I reckon the India and NZ fans shouldn't get their trains or flights home just yet!!
