England defeat Sri Lanka by 12 runs in third T20I to clean sweep series

Pallekele [Sri Lanka], February 3 (ANI): England defeated Sri Lanka by 12 runs in a low-scoring T20I encounter at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday. The visitors swept the series 3-0.
Opting to bat first on the slow surface of Pallekele, England lost their first wicket of Ben Duckett in the opening over when Dushmantha Chameera found him in front of the wicket.
Jacob Bethell (3), Tom Banton (7), and captain Harry Brook (4) also lost their wickets within the first powerplay.
Jos Buttler made 25 off 21 balls before Maheesh Theekshana bowled him in the eighth over. Will Jacks could only make three runs off four balls.
Sam Curran made a fighting 58 off 48 balls, which helped England set a modest total of 128 runs. Chameera dismissed him in the last over to complete his five-wicket haul. He finished with the bowling figures of 4-0-24-5.
Matheesha Pathirana took a couple of wickets. Theekshana and Dunith Wellalage also grabbed one wicket each.
Searching for their first win of the series, Sri Lanka lost their first wicket, Kamil Mishara, in the opening over when Luke Wood dismissed him. Pathum Nissanka added 33 runs for the second wicket with Kusal Mendis (26).
Sri Lanka kept losing wickets at regular intervals, courtesy of England spinners, Jacob Bethell and Will Jacks who shared seven wickets between them. Bethell finished with the bowling figures of 3.3-0-11-4, whereas Jacks ended his four overs with three wickets, conceding just 14 runs.
Sam Curran was named Player of the Match and Player of the Series.
After winning the series, England skipper Harry Brook said it was a great group to be a part of, one of the most fun wins she ever had.
"The way the boys kept fighting and gave everything right until the end was incredible. It was brilliant to be part of such a comeback. I think we've shown that we can adapt to different surfaces. Tonight was obviously a tricky wicket to bat on, but the way Sam battled through and got us to a target we felt we could defend was outstanding. Then the way the boys backed the spinners, bowling 16 overs of spin against Sri Lanka in their own conditions, was an awesome effort," he said, according to ESPNcricinfo.
Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka said they are very disappointed. "I think we probably could have taken it a bit deeper; that's the one area where we could have done slightly better. Yeah, it was a good contest. There were a lot of positives again today, Chameera bowled really well, and Theekshana bowled well too. There are still areas where we didn't bowl as well as we'd like, but those are things we need to address moving forward. Hopefully, we can get those right ahead of the World Cup." (ANI)