{"id":263164,"date":"2026-09-17T21:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T21:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/tom-bantons-six-hitting-wins-t20-for-england-after-dawson-derails-sri-lanka\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T21:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T21:05:14","slug":"tom-bantons-six-hitting-wins-t20-for-england-after-dawson-derails-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/tom-bantons-six-hitting-wins-t20-for-england-after-dawson-derails-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Banton\u2019s six-hitting wins T20 for England after Dawson derails Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

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England extended their extraordinary hex over Sri Lanka to a 14th game, with the tourists looking as out of their depth as the balls that were repeatedly deposited into the River Taff as their opponents cantered to an increasingly and deliciously customary victory.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen years have passed since Sri Lanka, crowned world champions in the format a month earlier, beat England by nine runs at the Oval. They have lost every meeting since and with this one also another series, and while much about this game contrasted with Tuesday\u2019s first encounter in Southampton<\/a> \u2013 starting with England winning the toss and choosing to chase \u2013 the outcome did not. This emphatic home win was sealed in the end in slapdash style: no-ball, wide, single, wide, single, muted celebration. Ryan van Niekerk, the Sri Lanka bowling coach, estimated a par score on this pitch at 200; England\u2019s target was just 146, and they got there with 47 balls remaining to win by six wickets.<\/p>\n

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Not that Sri Lanka are alone in finding this side too hot to handle, with this England\u2019s 19th win in 21. It was the six-hitting that most obviously illustrated the disparity in batting quality and power between the sides. Only two Sri Lankans managed to clear the boundary, and none more than once. Tom Banton doubled their collective tally on his own on his way to his fifth and fastest 50 in T20s; Harry Brook managed three sixes, and he only faced eight balls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just got match-winners throughout,\u201d said Liam Dawson. \u201cYou look at our class and power with the bat, not many teams have that destructiveness. We\u2019ve got some freaks in our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Charith Asalanka, the Sri Lanka captain, this was another chastening encounter. \u201cThey were too good,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to improve a lot, honestly, because we are not up to the mark right now.\u201d His team\u2019s evening had started promisingly, with the ball racing at the slightest invitation across an outfield slick from a brief pre-match shower, but soon they went from scoring at pace to unravelling with similar rapidity. After five overs Lahiru Udara, bumped up a spot to open, and Pathum Nissanka had scored 55. The team managed 90 for nine off the remaining 15.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Liam Dawson celebrates with Sonny Baker after dismissing Kamil Mishara for a duck.<\/span> Photograph: Peter Cziborra\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was Dawson who initially derailed them. Udara, having scored 21 off 20, drove high to mid-on, where any fielder but the 6ft 5in Jamie Overton would have clawed at thin air but this one nonchalantly plucked it out of the sky. Kamil Mishara promptly miscued his first ball back to the bowler. Sri Lanka attempted to rebuild but instead they crumbled. The last four overs of their innings were simply dismal: they scored only 12, for the loss of four wickets. Sonny Baker bowled two of those, his last a wicket maiden, to continue his fine form from the series opener.<\/p>\n

For a while England tracked them closely: they too had scored 55 after five overs, though by then Aneurin Donald, now of Derbyshire but born in Swansea and originally of Glamorgan, had mis-hit successive Eshan Malinga deliveries into the sky, the first landing safe and the second not so much, caught by Wanindu Hasaranga at mid-on. And like Sri Lanka they were two down in the sixth, Jos Buttler\u2019s wild slash ending an innings of 30 off 16, during which he became the first man to pass 15,000 runs in T20 cricket.<\/p>\n

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