The first game was dramatically tied after England staged a stunning comeback to save the day aided by fine efforts from Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes and Liam Plunkett. As a result Eoin Morgan and his players will go into game two with their tails up while Angelo Mathews will have to get his team back on track mentally.
Mathew's fitness is itself in doubt for the next game after he sustained a hamstring strain at Trent Bridge. The Sri Lankan skipper's omission from the side would be a huge blow as he played a superb captain's role in the first game with a battling 73 and also picked up a couple of wickets.
England know that their top order batsmen will need to step up after being taken apart by Sri Lanka's pace bowlers.
"The general performance was poor – bat, ball, field, was really rusty," said Morgan after the first game. "
Mathews said:
"I thought we had the game in the bag for most of the overs but unfortunately the yorker fell just off line and went for a six, Plunkett got them through. Unfortunately for bowlers, it happens, Pradeep bowled well. I thought all the bowlers bowled really well. We just fell short by 15 or 20 runs, we could have got at least 300 on that wicket, it was a brilliant wicket."
Fans will be hoping to see another classic as the limited overs match really kept them engaged and never lacking for excitement as the thrilling finish panned out. A criticism of limited overs games is that they can develop into non events but not this ODI opening game. But when England were six wickets down and needed 205 it looked to be all over bar the shouting but then something happened. Jos Butler stepped up on his way to just shy of a century. The England wicket-keeper's 93 from 99 deliveries kept England fans believing. A lot of credit must also go to the superb knock of 95 not out from Chris Woakes even though ultimately it was Liam Plunket who got to make the 'Hollywood' final winning score.
England will be hoping for a hugely improved performance from spinner Moeen Ali in game two . Both Ali and Adil Rashid came up short and Sri Lanka's batsmen will look to exploit any weaknesses.England will go into the second match as hot favourites as can tell by cricket betting odds at William Hill on 1/3 but Sri Lanka at 12/5 are well capable of upsetting the odds in the game and arguably also looking towards the series outcome. A close series is expected in the best of five series.
