Given that they have had to play the two co-hosts, Australia and New Zealand, in their opening three games, England’s position of sixth in Pool A at the 2015 World Cup may be somewhat misleading.
However, the performances in the defeats to the host countries, as well as in the victory over in Scotland, has not given their supporters much optimism as to their chances of making an impact in the latter stages of the tournament.
On Sunday they face Sri Lanka at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington, who are currently in second place in the Pool, but whose two wins have come against Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and who like England may find that their position has been falsified somewhat by the vagaries of the fixture schedule.
Given England’s poor record in recent World Cups, in might come as something of a surprise to find that of the nine previous meetings between the two countries at the tournament, has seen England victorious on six occasions. Sri Lanka’s three successes have come from the last four games between Sunday’s contestants, including a 10-wicket thrashing in Colombo in 2011.
With Gary Balance who has been batting at No.3 having managed just a total of 30 runs in his three innings to date, it is likely that England will bring in either Alex Hales, a noted big hitter at the top of the order, or Ravi Bopara who adds explosive hitting lower in the order along with his medium pace bowling.
The game could well be decided by the ability of England’s front line seamers, James Anderson, Chris Broad and Steven Finn, to negate the experienced top of the Sri Lanka batting order, which contains such iconic ODI players as Dilshan, Sangakkara and M Jayawardene.
If England can contain these three, the rest of the Sri Lankan order looks likely to do far less damage, and England could get the win that would put them on the verge of a place in the quarter-finals.