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Tom Alsop struck an excellent 96 for England Lions v Sri Lanka A
Hampshire's Tom Alsop struck an excellent 96 for England Lions as they secured a first win of the one-day series against Sri Lanka A.
Kent's Daniel Bell-Drummond scored his second England Lions century, and shared a record-breaking 200 partnership with Alsop, as both batsmen impressed in testing conditions.
The Lions were in trouble at 12 for two when Alsop joined Bell-Drummond, after the loss of openers Ben Duckett and Keaton Jennings in the same over from Vikum Sanjaya.
But by the time Alsop was dismissed for 96, stumped aiming to reach three figures with a leg-side boundary, the Lions were within sight of a modest victory target, after a good all-round bowling performance in which Toby Roland-Jones and the debutant Graeme White each took three wickets.
The 21-year-old Hampshire left-hander had faced 105 balls and hit 11 boundaries, and their partnership of exactly 200 was a new record for the third wicket in List A cricket for the Lions or the England A and B teams that preceded them, beating 194 between Ravi Bopara and James Taylor also against Sri Lanka A in Worcester in 2014.
It’s my first time in sub-continent cricket, it’s been a hard learning curve, and it’s been frustrating getting starts and not finding ways of going on. Today wasn’t quite the perfect innings, but it was good to get a score and nice to spend some time in the middle with Deebs and win the game.
Tom Alsop
Bell-Drummond reached his century in the next over, after facing 109 balls and stroking 11 boundaries. The Kent right-hander had top-scored with 51 in the Lions’ defeat in the third match of the series in Kurunegala on Monday, and his previous List A century was an unbeaten 171 against Sri Lanka A on home territory in Canterbury last July, when he shared a record-breaking second-wicket partnership with Duckett.
He was dismissed later in the over, bowled by the left-arm spinner Chaturanga de Silva, who was one of several new faces in a reshaped Sri Lanka A team which nevertheless included seven players with senior international experience.
Joe Clarke also fell cheaply as the Lions experienced a slight wobble, but Liam Livingstone secured the win by five wickets with 16 balls to spare with a powerful straight six which clattered into the scoreboard.
The series concludes on Saturday, also at the Colombo Cricket Club ground on Maitland Crescent.
