Jonny Bairstow, a star of England's white-ball resurgence, has looked a pale shadow of himself this tournament. ©AFP
At about 5 PM in Bengaluru, with the sun not yet fully down, Mark Wood came out with a nearly-patented England method of swinging for the fences. The defending champions were nine down for 156 at this point, but the sight wasn't uncommon for the way England have been known to play. As it turned out, he was stumped comfortably, and the attempted attack was blunted swiftly. Not for the first time.
Earlier Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes had all fallen in the much-vaunted aggressive route. But with the fall of every wicket, there also rose the possibility of an encore of a famous England comeback.
Maybe Joe Root would steady the ship? Perhaps Bairstow would finally deliver on the threats he'd given out in this tournament. Was now the time for Buttler to step up in this World Cup? Could Liam Livingstone conjure up one of those hitting sprees that he's come to be known for. Would Moeen bring about redemption for himself and the team? Or would Ben Stokes finally do Ben Stokes things?
After all, this was the match and perhaps the ground that should have suited their style of play a lot. The boundaries remained short as ever, they were up against a bowling attack under so much fire that it had undergone a mini revamp after being comfortably at the bottom of the table for economy rates in this World Cup. If ever there was a match-up they could have wished to script a turnaround like they did in 2019, this was it. This notwithstanding the fact that they hadn't beaten Sri Lanka in a World Cup game in 24 years.
The only difference between the previous match at this venue where
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