The first part of the English summer finally came to an end with the last of the ODIs, played at Old Trafford in Manchester.  Dammika Prasad came in for the visitors who also handed a debut to opener Dimuth Karunaratne. Samit Patel came in for Stuart Broad in an otherwise unchanged England team.

England won the toss and decided to have a hit in the middle. Cook and Kieswetter once again got England off to a flying start before they lost their wickets in the space of three deliveries, after adding 85. Kevin Pietersen was also dismissed early as England wobbled at 95-3. Jonathan Trott and Eoin Morgan set about rebuilding the innings and they played the spinners with relative ease and kept the scoring rate up. A partnership of 118 runs with both batsmen making half centuries, looked all set to take England to a score of 320. However, Suraj Randiv had other ideas as he ran through the order to end up with 5-42, as England ended with a par score of 268-9, with the last pair adding 15 valuable runs.

269 was probably a par score for the wicket but the visitors lost their openers and Mahela Jayawerdene early, there stood a monumental task ahead of them. At 29-3, Chandimal joined Sangakkara and the pair consolidated. Swann got the crucial wicket of Chandimal, but not before he made a half century. Sangakkara fell soon after for 48 and it looked like the Lankan chase would derail. Young Jeevan Mendis and Angelo Mathews added 102 for the sixth wicket and the Lankans needed 36 runs from their last 4 overs. Samil Patel sent Mendis back while Mathews brought up his half century. The equation came to 24 from 15 balls as Lanka went for broke and lost the wickets of Kulasekara and Randiv. A couple of hefty blows later Mathews lost his wicket which drove the final nail in the coffin.  England sealed the series after winning by 16 runs and Trott was awarded Man of the Match and Cook the Man of the Series. It is back to the drawing board for the visitors as England look to prepare for a tough Test series against India.

Tags: 5th ODI, Cricket, England, Manchester, ODI Match, ODI Series, Old Trafford, Review, Sri Lanka