England's indecisive one-day policy backfired badly to enable Sri Lanka to complete a comfortable five-wicket victory in the Emirates Triangular Tournament final at Lord's yesterday.
Having switched from a side of all-rounders to specialists, including restoring Michael Atherton at the top of the order, experimentation proved their downfall.
Once again, England threw away a substantial platform to be restricted to 256 for eight, having lost eight wickets for 114 runs in 144 balls.
It left Sri Lanka chasing the biggest total of the tournament and attempting to become the first side batting second to win.
Failure looked likely when Darren Gough smashed Sanath Jayasuriya's stumps in the first over. The Lord's crowd were then given a demonstration on how to build a one-day innings.
The mainstay of their reply was Marvan Atapattu, the brother-in-law of captain Arjuna Ranatunga. Atapattu batted all but two balls of the innings to hit an unbeaten 132 off 151 balls including 14 boundaries.
His composed and calculated innings, coupled with opener Romesh Kaluwitharana's more aggressive stance, formed a 140run second wicket partnership.
The pair were encouraged by several fielding lapses, Robert Croft being the main offender, and three missed run out attempts by Nasser Hussain.
Kaluwitharana found Graeme Hick on the extra cover boundary off Robert Croft, having hit six boundaries in his 68 off 77 balls. Aravinda de Silva hammered 34 off 37 balls, including 15 off one over from Peter Martin.
England's innings was once again given a sound start, with Nick Knight and Michael Atherton, replacing Adam Hollioake for his first one-day international since leading England to a Texaco Trophy rout of Australia last summer, forging a 132-run partnership in 26 overs.
But the inevitable collapse restricted them to just 102 runs in the final 20 overs.
Muttiah Muralitharan, one of seven bowlers used inside the first 25 overs as Ranatunga attempted to break England's opening partnership, finished with the best figures in a one-day international at Lord's of five for 34, and the manof-the-match award.
Atherton's recall was firmly justified with 64 off 73 balls.
