Sri Lanka beats England to win ODI series

Sri Lanka swept to a six-wicket victory over England at Edgbaston on Tuesday, sealing a 3-2 victory in their one-day international series.

Lahiru Thirimanne scored an unbeaten 60 and Mahela Jayawardene added 53 as the tourists reached 222-4 in reply to England’s 219 all out in the decider of the five-match series.

Earlier, Sachithra Senanayake angered the crowd by controversially running out Jos Buttler. Senanayake ran him out at the non-striker’s end as he backed up out of his ground, albeit after twice warning him in his previous over for pinching yards.

“I think you’re going to have to ask Angelo why he did it. I’m obviously disappointed with it,” England captain Alastair Cook told Sky Sports television.

When asked if it was something he would do, Cook added: “I hope not, you don’t know quite in the spur of the moment about it but you know emotion can get the better of you.”

In response, Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews stood by his earlier decision not to call the batsman back, pointing out that Buttler had been warned to stop moving out of his crease early.

"He was taking unfair starts, not only this game but the last game as well, so we gave him two warnings in the spirit of cricket because I don’t know how to stop a batsman from doing that continuously. But we had to go for it," he said. “What we did was completely within the rules.”

England, which led twice in the series, was unchanged from the side which lost by seven runs at Lord’s on Saturday. Alastair Cook scored his first ODI half-century, with 56 off 85 balls, before England was bowled out with nearly two overs to spare.

In reply, the tourists held their nerve, courtesy of the decisive fourth-wicket stand of 98 by Jayawardene and Thirimanne to take victory with 10 balls to spare.

AP