Riding on an unbeaten 104-run knock from Joe Root and six wickets from Chris Woakes, England defeated Sri Lanka by 5 wickets in the rain-curtailed two day 5th ODI (this series has a reserve day for every match; Sri Lanka batted yesterday, but due to rain persistent rain yesterday, England had to chase the target today) at Pallekele and kept their hopes of series win alive. 

Chasing a target of 240, England lost two early wickets. Moeen Ali got out in the second over of the match to the comeback man Sachitra Senanayake. Alastair Cook also got out lbw to Senanayake in the seventh over. England’s hero of the last match James Taylor came in at three and scored his second fifty of the series. Taylor, alongwith Root shared 104 runs before Taylor got out to Thisara Perera when he was on 68. Root, then played sensibly and got to his 3rd ODI century and was very well supported by Ravi Bopara, who played a decent 28 run knock. Sachitra Senanayake was the most successful of the Sri Lankan bowlers as he picked 2 wickets for just 35 runs in his full-quota of overs. 
 
Earlier, after losing the toss, Sri Lanka lost Kusal Perera in the very first over of the match. This was Perera’s 6th duck in his last 22 innings and the 8th time he got out in the first over of an ODI. Tillakaratne Dilshan got off to a start but got out to Chris Jordan. Kumar Sangakkara and captain Angelo Mathews then put on 85 runs for the 4th wicket before Mathews gave away his wicket to Jordan when he was on 40. Then any other batsmen could not support Sangakkara well as Chris Woakes ran through their batting and in anxiety to score at a brisk pace, he missed out on a century. He top-scored for the team with 91. Chris Woakes took the second sixth-wicket haul of his ODI career. His first one came against Australia at Brisbane in 2011. 
 
The sixth ODI of the series will be played on December 13th at the same venue. 

Scorecard:

Sri Lanka Batting:

Batsmen

Dismissal

Runs

Balls

4s

6s

Tillakaratne Dilshan

b Jordan

35

31

6

0

Kusal Perera

c Jordan b Finn

0

2

0

0

Kumar Sangakkara†

c Root b Woakes

91

123

10

0

Mahela Jayawardene

c Jordan b Woakes

2

3

0

0

Angelo Mathews*

c Woakes b Jordan

40

76

4

0

Lahiru Thirimanne

lbw b Tredwell

8

19

1

0

Jeevan Mendis

c & b Woakes

12

15

0

0

Thisara Perera

c Root b Woakes

27

17

4

1

Sachitra Senanayake

b Woakes

0

2

0

0

Dhamika Prasad

not out

5

5

0

0

Ajantha Mendis

b Woakes

0

1

0

0

Extras

(b 2, lb 2, w 15)

19

 

 

 

Total

49 overs

239

England Bowling:

Bowlers

Overs

Maidens

Runs

Wicket

Steven Finn

6

0

28

1

Chris Woakes

8

0

47

6

Moeen Ali

10

0

50

0

Chris Jordan

10

0

56

2

James Tredwell

10

2

33

1

Joe Root

5

0

21

0

England Batting:

Batsmen

Dismissal

Runs

Balls

4s

6s

Alastair Cook

lbw b Senanayake

20

30

3

0

Moeen Ali

b Senanayake

4

4

1

0

James Taylor

c Mendis b Perera

68

90

5

1

Joe Root

not out

104

117

7

1

Ravi Bopara

c Thirimanne b Dilshan

28

49

1

0

Eoin Morgan

c Perera b Mendis

5

5

1

0

Jos Buttler

not out

2

1

0

0

Extras

(lb 6, w 2, nb 1)

9

 

 

 

Total

49.1 overs

240-5

Sri Lanka Bowling:

Bowlers

Overs

Maidens

Runs

Wickets

Tillakaratne Dilshan

9.1

0

45

1

Sachitra Senanayake

10

0

35

2

Angelo Mathews

4

0

14

0

Dhamika Prasad

4

0

24

0

Jeevan Mendis

7

0

41

0

Ajantha Mendis

9

0

49

1

Thisara Perera

6

0

26

1

Sidharth Gulati

While spending good 22 years of my life, I found my passion in India's unofficial national game, Cricket.

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