T20 World Cup: Meet Sri Lanka, the team England have to beat

Sri Lanka provide England with their final group 1 opponents in Sydney on Saturday (7pm local; 8am GMT). England need to win, and possibly win well if Australia overwhelm Afghanistan on Friday, but Sri Lanka are themselves in with a theoretical chance of making the semi-finals were they to beat England and one of Australia or New Zealand, who play Ireland, slipped up.

Logically England should win – but when did logic ever have anything to do with T20 cricket? The head-to-head between the sides shows England lead 9-4, and that includes seven straight wins since 2016. England have also won four of the five meetings in T20 World Cups, most recently in Sharjah last year when Jos Buttler scored 101 from 67 balls in a 26-run victory.

Form guideAgainst the odds, Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup in the UAE in September, beating India and Pakistan in a group stage and Pakistan again in the final. They had to go through the preliminary phase of this competition to reach the Super 12s and there they beat the UAE and the Netherlands but crashed to an ignominious defeat to Namibia, the biggest result in Namibian cricket’s history. So far in Group 1, they have beaten Ireland and Afghanistan and lost to Australia and New Zealand, whom they played at the SCG last weekend. Their best recent performance in Sydney came in February when they took Australia to a Super Over.

Chris SilverwoodSri Lanka are coached by Chris Silverwood, who in February was sacked as England head coach in the wake of the disastrous Ashes tour. He was appointed in April on a two-year contract. The Asia Cup win showed his team’s strength of character because they often had to dig themselves out of trouble, as did the way they bounced back from the loss to Namibia. What perhaps reflects less well on Silverwood’s Sri Lankans is the standard of their fielding; that New Zealand rallied from 15 for three to make 167 was at least partly down to missed catches.

InjuriesEngland may have had their woes with losing Jonny Bairstow and Reece Topley, but no side has been as badly hit by injuries as Sri Lanka. They have had to replace four players from their original 15-man squad, most crucially fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera and batsman Danushka Gunathilaka, who between them have played almost 100 T20s. Chameera broke down with a foot injury during the preliminary phase and would have been an asset on Australian pitches. Two left-arm seamers, Dilshan Madushanka and Binura Fernando, have also had to drop out.