Andrew Strauss’s team have muddled and improvised their way into the quarter-finals but you sense only a complete performance will have any chance of toppling Sri Lanka in their Colombo stronghold.
To that end, the sudden departure of Michael Yardy, with depression, was not ideal preparation. Apart from leaving them without cover for their two spinners, Yardy’s problems will inevitably have shifted the players’ focus, especially those close to him like Matt Prior and Luke Wright, his team-mates at Sussex.
And yet, there remains the feeling this side is beginning to believe it can cope with anything that is thrown at them, and that includes a Sri Lanka side determined to give Muttiah Muralitharan a fitting valediction with a second World Cup final.
“It gives me a lot of belief that you don’t have to look at the same two or three players who deliver for you,” Strauss said on Friday.
“We haven’t always been able to rely on Plan A so we’ve had to chop and change things a little bit. That gives me a lot of confidence going into this game but, again, we will have to adapt to the conditions we encounter here.
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