Craig Kieswetter top-scored with a rapid-fire 61 as England made 229 for eight in a rain-affected first one-day international here at The Oval on Tuesday. The match was reduced to 32 overs per side after a storm interrupted play for three hours when England, who were put into bat after new one-day skipper Alastair Cook lost the toss, were seven overs into their innings.
A Duckworth Lewis adjustment to England’s total meant Sri Lanka needed 232 to win the match. Kieswetter hit two sixes and four fours as he passed 50 in one-day internationals for the third time before holing out to the first ball of Suraj Randiv’s second spell. Eoin Morgan chipped in with 45, Kevin Pietersen 26 and Jonathan Trott 23 with Lasith Malinga picking up three wickets and Sanath Jayasuriya, in his final international match, taking the wicket of Ian Bell – his 190th in his 445th appearance since 1989.
In the first game of a five-match series England were on course for a much bigger total when Kieswetter and Morgan were at the wicket but their scoring rate slowed until a late flurry from Tim Bresnan, who hit Suranga Lakmal for three successive fours in the penultimate over and Stuart Broad.
Bresnan recalled to the squad after a calf injury gave the innings a much-needed shot in the arm when it looked like petering out with England’s big hitters back in the pavilion. Pietersen put on 56 for the third wicket with Kieswetter before hitting Jeevan Mendis’ first ball, a long hop, straight to Tillakaratne Dilshan at mid-on when he had made 26. He may have been lucky to get that many having survived a close run out call when Dilshan, recovered from a broken thumb, hit the stumps direct from mid-on.
