Chamari Athapaththu sets up T20 series decider as Sri Lanka cruise past England

England may come to regret treating their September series against Sri Lanka as an Ashes afterthought. Saturday’s T20 at Chelmsford was an embarrassing display of hubris, with the hosts bowled out for 104 in 18 overs – their worst performance at home since Australia saw them off for 87, eight years ago – before succumbing to an eight-wicket defeat.

Sri Lanka have not beaten them in international cricket in more than a decade, and never before in a T20 international. This was not just a defeat, but a hammering.

It was a sign of the times that the sell-out Essex crowd cheered loudly when England’s total tipped over 100 – it was about the only thing they had to cheer about. That milestone came courtesy of a ninth-wicket partnership between Issy Wong and Charlie Dean, who slammed three consecutive fours off Inoka Ranaweera before finally being yorked by Udeshika Prabodhani to end England’s miserable effort with 12 balls left unbowled.

Sri Lanka’s captain, Chamari Athapaththu, then unleashed an astonishing display of power-hitting with the ball sailing firstly out of the ground, then over the sightscreen, as she brought up a half-century in 26 balls. England’s new-ball opening pair, Kate Cross and Dani Gibson, were punished for 36 runs off their opening three overs and this time there was no Sophie Ecclestone to bail England out when things went pear-shaped.

Instead, Wong – playing first international match since December – was thrown into the lion’s den. Perhaps she had solved the run-up issues that have plagued her all summer? Apparently not. Three no balls and a wide, 12 runs off the over, and a young bowler who coach Jon Lewis admitted pre-series was struggling with confidence issues was back to square one.

To add insult to injury, Heather Knight brought her back to bowl a second over, with 13 runs needed. It went for 12; two balls later, Harshitha Samarawickrama (30 not out) clobbered a six over midwicket and Sri Lanka were celebrating a famous win.

This was almost the exact same England batting lineup that smashed 186 runs in 17 overs against Sri Lanka at Hove on Thursday (Wong the one change); here, they looked like they were expecting it to be easy and couldn’t quite work out what to do when facing conditions that suited Sri Lanka – bright sunshine and a hybrid pitch at a ground known to offer turn.

Athapaththu chose to put herself on to bowl the opening over and immediately broke through the defences of the in-form Danni Wyatt, turning the ball past her bat to clean bowl her in the opening over.

At the other end, off-spinner Inoshi Fernando, who missed out on selection in the opening game, immediately made her presence felt. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot to the hot head of Alice Capsey. Trying to break the shackles in the next over, Capsey holed out to the mid-off fielder – none other than Fernando. Fernando then chimed in with a wicket of her own: Maia Bouchier tapping up an easy catch to extra cover, minutes after whip-cracking a beautiful boundary through point.

By the time Fernando came back to bowl the 12th over, the middle-order had collapsed in a heap – Jones dispatched lbw by a last-second Sri Lankan appeal to DRS, Freya Kemp stumped off a wide after Anushka Sanjeewani flung herself forward and dislodged the stumps and Knight doing the opposite of leading from the front, sending an easy catch back into the hands of left-arm spinner Inoka Ranaweera.

In the scrambled panic from England, Fernando took her second wicket, and Sri Lanka’s seventh, as Gibson fell to an excellent diving catch at short third man attempting the reverse.