T20 World Cup | Incredible Jos Buttler century storms England into semi finals

England maintained their winning ways with a clinical bowling performance in the second half of the game-winning their fourth straight match of the Super 12 stage of the competition. Playing in a low and skiddy wicket at Sharjah, England were put on backfoot after losing the toss. They lost their top order inside the powerplay, but a scintillating partnership between Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler saw them through to 163 runs in 20 overs. But more on that later.

Chasing 164 runs in dew was not an exceptionally difficult task for Sri Lanka but they faltered from the word go. Pathum Nissanka was run out by Eoin Morgan in the third ball over the over trying to sneak in a single. The runout did not dip the run rate though with #3 Charith Asalanka attacking the English bowling line up. While Woakes and Moeen Ali got hit early on, the introduction of the ever dependable Adil Rashid changed the game. Asalanka, trying to be aggressive against the leg spinner, sliced up a googly in the air and had to depart off a catch by Moeen Ali at extra cover. After Asalanka’s wicket in the 5th over, Sri Lanka lost two more in quick intervals, with Avishka Fernando (13 off 14) and Bhanuka Rajapaksa (26 off 18) returning to the pavilion inside 11 overs.

With SL tattering at 76/5, the reigns were held by captain Dasun Shanaka and Wanindu Hasaranga who counterattacked the English bowling line-up.

Just when the tide started to turn for the Lankans, things got worse for the English side with Tymal Mills, England’s premier death bowler walking off the pitch with a limp in the 14th over. Mills was in his second over at that time.

With England needing to get more overs out of their part time spinner Liam Livingstone now, SL looked in with a shout.

And that is where two moments of magic changed the game.

First, it was was a brilliant parry effort from Jason Roy at deep extra cover who ran, caught the ball with a diving effort and threw the ball back to Sam Billings to dismiss the aggressive Wanindu Hasaranga in the 17th over. And then it was Jos Buttler in the 18th over, who anticipated a dab behind the wicket from Shanaka and reacted quickly to grab the ball and throw it back into the striker’s end to finish the SL captain's innings.

The double blow late in the game absolutely finished the Lankan innings and there was absolutely no way that they could essentially recover from there. England won the game within the next seven balls, bundling Sri Lanka for 137 runs.

Earlier in the innings, put into bat first by Sri Lanka, England took time to adjust against their normal flow of the game. Being used to bat second after winning the toss, England were put out of their comfort zone straight away by the mix of Lankan bowlers.

Captain Dasun Shanaka tried four of his bowlers in the first six overs, and being aided by a wicket that skid on low really worked in their favour. England lost three wickets early with Jason Roy, Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow walking back to the hut. They had put up 36 runs at that point.

The struggling continued till the halfway point of the innings with England not scoring a single boundary between overs 6-10. Good thing was that England had not lost any of the wickets but they had not scored either. Opener Jos Buttler was batting at 24 off 30 balls, with his out of form captain Eoin Morgan, once again struggling at 6 off 15 balls.

And here’s where it changed.

Mickey Arthur came into the pitch and had a chat with his captain and the Lankan fast bowlers for some very odd reason started bowling full-length on a pitch that had been keeping low all this time.

This allowed the English players to go gung-ho against the troika of pacers, Dushmantha Chameera, Lahiru Kumara and Chamika Karunaratne who bowled alongside their captain and Shanaka and dispatched them all over the park.

Buttler started the attack and scored his half century in 45 balls - his slowest in the format of the game.

Morgan, at a point batting 9 off 20 balls, increased his rate to 100 SR, scoring 34 runs. He was the first one to depart after scoring 40 off 36 balls in the second ball of the 19th over. The pair had added 112 runs off 78 balls.

Buttler looked in with a shout for his century but faced some tremendous deliveries from Chameera in the final over. Needing 5 for his century from the final ball of the innings, he received a gift of a thigh high full toss on the leg stump and dispatched it over square leg for a big six, in the process becoming the fourth centurion for his country in the T20I format.

In a tremendous bout of acceleration, he scored his last 50 runs in just 22 balls.

With their fourth win in a row, England are now the first team to qualify for the semi final stage of the tournament with one game remaining. They would be monitoring the condition of Tymal Mills over the next few days with the first semi-final scheduled to be played on 10 November.

To nobody’s surprise, Jos Buttler was named the man of the match for his incredible T20I hundred.

England next play South Africa on 6 November.