Ben Duckett and Daniel Bell-Drummond smashed their way into the record books with the second-highest one-day partnership in the world, as the England Lions cruised to a 140-run win over Sri Lanka A at Canterbury.
Duckett’s unbeaten 220 became the record for an England Lions player – topping captain Dawid Malan’s 185 from last week. He shared in an unbeaten 367-run partnership with his Kent-based team mate from only 232 balls.
The partnership was the highest-ever one-day score at Canterbury – a record held by England’s Eoin Morgan and Nick Compton since 2009 – and just to make sure of their place in history, the duo also recorded the highest one-day score at the Spitfire Ground.
Ben Duckett said: “It’s been the best day of my career so far. There were a couple of times early on when I hit it, it dropped short of fielders and I got a bit of luck.
“When I got to 100 I said I’m going to push on. It was my day I guess – every time I hit the ball it went into the gap. There was a lot of spin bowling, which I do prefer facing. I’ll try and continue this run of form and score some runs when I go back to Northampton.”
England won the toss and chose to bat with Malan’s the only England wicket to fall, for 23 off 31 balls, when he was stumped by Niroshan Dickwella, providing Ramith Rambukwella with the Sri Lankan bowling attack’s solitary success of the day.
Before the match Malan had spoken to the team of adaptability, both with the bat and ball, something which had already won the tri-series for the Lions following Sunday’s victory over Pakistan A.
But it took England’s bowling attack 14 overs before they took their first wicket, when Dickwella was caught by Sam Billings from a George Garton delivery – quickly followed by a second, Mahela Udawatte for just one, in the same over.
Angelo Perera led Sri Lanka’s fight back with a score of 69 before being caught by Duckett from a Saqib Mahmood delivery. Rambukwella was also dismissed from a Mahmood delivery, being caught by Tom Curran.
Garton added to his wicket haul for the day by bowling Thisara Perera and Sachith Pathirana for 45 and 18 respectively.
The four wickets from Garton, two from Liam Dawson and one each for Dawid Malan and Brett D’Oliveira ensured Sri Lanka were all out for 285, giving England a win of 140 runs.
England Lions coach Andy Flower said: “We’ve played four matches and we’ve won four. We’ve had some great performances and we have taken opportunities to put young players out there. It’s a healthy thing for England cricket if they are pushing for places.
“There have been some great performances, some exciting performances – we have seen four centurions and some very big individual scores this season.”
England Lions’ record-breaking innings:
- Second highest 2nd wicket in List A history – only behind Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels’ 372 for West Indies v Zimbabwe, 2015
- Highest 2nd wicket in any Lions or A Team history overtaking Jason Roy and James Vince’s 198 in England v South Africa A, Kimberley 2015
- Highest for any wicket in any Lions or A Team history overtaking Gary Ballance and Luke Wright’s 224 for England v Bangladesh A, Bristol 2013
- Highest team total for Lions/ England A beating 393 for five v Sri Lanka A, Northampton 2016
- Second highest total in all ‘A-team’ cricket history after 433 for three between India A and South Africa A, Pretoria 2013