Massive finish for Dernbach, good slower ball and then a perfect yorker to dismiss Malinga. You can see what the selectors have seen in him, he's bowled good yorkers before, he's quite raw and there's plenty for him to work on, but I think he's done just enough for a spot against India.
Good win and a good game, we've clearly got areas to work on, but that's a good series win against a strong side. I thought Samit was a bit meh today, but then it is hard to base him on one match in his comeback. I think the bowling unit as a whole today was pretty strong, Dernbach came back so well in those last 2 balls, that was a massive over.
Sri Lanka had it in the bag, they needed nine an over from quite a few overs out and were sustaining that, but then Mendis and co blew it. Was a cracking game, both sides in the ascendancy at various times.
Agree re Patel, but I think England need to try and integrate someone like him, or Bopara, in the side. I can't see him being a good all-rounder, but he could be a batsman who bowls (more when there is turn) If England play it like there's some kind of control and only bring him in when there is turn then I can't see him just performing every now and then, he needs a run in the side.
Bell for me has to go, he's in the side as a top batsman but not a top ODI batsman. Top score of 35 in the series, average of 20.25 and bits n pieces scores at an SR of 69.23 is not what you want from someone they are trying to find a berth in the side for and six ain't it.
KP did little in the series, a promising 41 ended too soon making half his series runs and the big gun is not firing which is a problem if you have that going into a World Cup (players need to be picked on form not reputation or destructive ability)
Pietersen's last EIGHT 'ODI series'
vs Sri Lanka : 85 runs @ 21.25
World Cup : 131 runs @ 32.75
vs Australia (a) : 185 runs @ 30.83
vs Australia (h) : 95 runs @ 19.00
vs Scotland : 17 runs @ 17.00
vs Bangladesh : 41 runs @ 13.67
vs South Africa : 52 runs @ 17.33
vs West Indies : 80 runs @ 20.00
Only in TWO of those series did he score a fifty, and that's a total of 686 runs @ 22.87 for which anyone else would almost certainly have been dropped. In the World Cup his best score of 59 was against Ireland, he is living off reputation.
Broad was omitted, I am a bit surprised because England do like to stick with their winning side rather than try and improve it.
Dernbach did ok, but only three top order victims and not always convincing leave me thinking he maybe should be back-up. Anderson is still way too hit and miss for my liking,
but he can do early damage so I guess if you're gonna have a 'wildcard' in your side it might as well be him. Still needs to work on his bowling for me, what he does when things aren't going right so he avoids those 1/91s and 0/72s. If he can get shot of those then he can average well under 30 instead of just over.
I maintain my view that the ODI and Test sides should be more separate, leaving out Bell and any that "do a job" but are nothing special in ODIs would get there. We could then have back-up for the Test team coming through via ODIs, the days of Test players doing the same job in ODIs is way back in the past. While Cook may have done a good job with the bat and England narrowly won the series, if Cook is playing more than one form of cricket how soon will he become fatigued/jaded? We have enough players who don't play Tests all the time to fit in with others just coming in for ODIs not to need to use many Test players - Morgan, Shah, Bopara, Bresnan and could extend that to Davies/Kieswetter, Shahzad, Patel, Dernbach and others. There are plenty to pick from, hell we go round in circles enough in picking them. Maybe one or two Test players like Swann are hard to not pick, but would we
definitely be much weaker without Cook, Bell, et al?
At the 35th over mark I was expecting England to post some 310+....Good comeback by Lankans...
) and finally in what was possibly the greatest test series I PERSONALLY have ever watched. 
