Alastair Cook gave an honest assessment of England’s performance in defeat to Sri Lanka today.
Cook’s side were restricted to 185 all out in 43 of the 45 overs available to them during the rain-reduced second one-day international at Colombo’s R Premadasa Stadium.
An unbroken partnership of 149 between Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene completed an eight-wicket victory with more than 10 overs to spare, doubling Sri Lanka’s lead in the seven-game series.
Speaking to ecb.co.uk, Cook said:“It wasn’t a great performance all-round really. Disappointing day, pretty much from the moment the toss went up we were second best.
“In hindsight I would probably have changed my decision at the toss. That’s not the reason for the gulf in the sides.
“It’s obviously frustrating. It’s been an interesting and tough couple of days for everyone and we certainly didn’t handle that as well as we could have done today.”
A ray of light for England was Ravi Bopara’s second straight fifty on his return to the team after being left out for the Royal London Series with India at the end of the summer.
“He’s played really well actually. Missing that last series against India, he’s gone away and he’s come back and proved his worth in the one-day team. That’s a lot of credit to him. He seems in a really good place,” Cook added.
Steven Finn and Moeen Ali ousting Sri Lanka’s openers in the batting powerplay gave England hope of troubling Sri Lanka.
However veteran superstars Sangakkara and Jayawardene responded by sharing their 36th century stand in international cricket, making 67 and 77 respectively.
Jayawardene, who was named man of the match, insisted at the post-match presentation that England's total had not been a straightforward target.
“One-hundred-and-eighty is always going to be a tricky score. We lost a couple of wickets early but you have to make sure you still bat positively,” he said
“Once we assessed the conditions the boundaries came along. I think anything around 240 would have been a more challenging total for us.
“I thought we bowled really well and with the bat we managed to control things. Winning's a good habit to have and after those five losses (to India this month) it's good to be back doing things right.”