Sri Lanka beat England by 15 runs

Sri Lanka outplayed England and took the third position in the Cathay Pacific/Standard Chartered Cricket Sixes 2001, being played at the Kowloon Cricket Club in Hong Kong, on Sunday.

England won the toss and asked Sri Lanka to bat first, and remarkably they restricted the opposition to 62/3 in five overs. Three excellent overs, Brown (1-0-5-1), Hollioake (1-0-8-0), Flintoff (1-0-7-1) was the highlight of England bowling, in a competition where runs have just kept flowing.

For Sri Lanka De Saram remained unbeaten on 21 off 11 balls and Upul Chandana made 24 off 12 balls. Wanasinghe (0) failed with the bat, so did Hathurasingha (3).

England had their task cut out, 63 runs needed for a win; they took 13 runs off the first over bowled by Chandana. The second over bowled by Wanasinghe turned out to be the best of the tournament so far (1-0-3-3), Maynard (1) was bowled trying to steer the ball to thirdman; Hollioake (1) was caught behind by De Saram and Blackwell (11) was also cleaned up, all in one over.

Flintoff (2) was caught and bowled by Warnapura and Collingwood was caught by Wanasinghe off the bowling of Upashantha. England were 22/5 at that stage, one of the worst performance with the bat by any team. Douglas Brown struck some heavy blows to make an unbeaten 22 to take England to 47/5, falling well short of the target. England have to be satisfied with the fourth position after their listless show with the bat.