Gough has the wood on Sanath Jayasuriya of late, dismissing him four times in a row with a top score of eleven. He frustrated Jayasuriya into edging to backward point where Nasser Hussain took a sharp catch. Jayasuriya is predominantly a front foot player and so far he hasn't come to terms with the extra bounce on Australian pitches.

When Romesh Kaluwitharana attempted to drive on the rise an off-cutter went through the gap and clipped the off bail. Even a strong back foot player like Kaluwitharana couldn't cope with Gough in top form.

Marvan Attapatu was the next to go edging a drive from a good length ball and GraemeHick grabbed a sharp catch at second slip, high to his left.

Gough then capped a marvellous spell by ripping a late in-swinging yorker right through Hashan Tillekeratne's defence to disturb the furniture. At the end of seven overs of sustained pace and accuracy Gough had figures of 4-10 with three maidens.

He enjoyed strong support from Alan Mullally who contained the Sri Lankans with a spell of accurate pace bowling. So great was the control this pair exerted that Sri Lanka were 23-4 after the first 14 overs. Into the breach stepped Arjuna Ranatunga, who controlled the pace of the game, but every now and again he branched out by playing his favourite shots, the sweep, the cut and the square drive. Ranatunga posted his forty-eighth half-century and Upul Chandana his first and they added 92. This provided Sri Lanka with some hope, although the way that Stewart failed to force the issue after taking early wickets, suggested he was comfortable chasing any target under two hundred.

That is exactly the wayStewart and the normally ultra-aggressive Nick Knight went about the chase. They accumulated runs at about five an over, but they did it with safety and none of the usual frenetic batting associated with Knight. Nuwan Zoysa dismissed them off successive balls and then beat Hussain outside off-stump with the hat-trick ball. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, they failed to capitalise on the double breakthrough as Romesh Kaluwitharana missed two stumpings and the skipper dropped a hot chance.

Scoreboard

Sri Lanka: S Jayasuriya c Hussain b Gough 1, R Kaluwitharana b Gough 15, M Atapattu c Hick b Gough 1, H Tillekeratne b Gough 0, M Jayawardene c Stewart b A Hollioake 12, a.Ranatunga run out 76, U Chandana c Wells b Croft 50, P Wickremasinghe b A Hollioake 8, C Vaas not out 11, M Muralitharan c Hussain b Mullally 1, N Zoysa run out 0; Extras: (lb8, w3) 11. Total: (all out in 50 overs) 186
Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-19, 3-20, 4-21, 5-48, 6-140, 7-158, 8-180, 9-184
Bowling:Gough 10-3-28-4, Mullally 10-2-23-1, A Hollioake 9-0-46-2, Ealham 10-0-32-0, Croft 8-0-29-1, Wells 3-0-20-0

England: A Stewart c Ranatunga b Zoysa 20, N Knight c Jayasuriya b Zoysa 31, G Hick not out 66, N Hussain st Kaluwitharana b Muralitharan 29, J Crawley not out 31; Extras: (lb2, w7, nb3) 12. Total: (for three wickets in 45.2 overs) 189
Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-53, 3-115
Bowling: Vaas 10-039-0, Wickremasinghe 10-0-35-0, Zoysa 6-1-22-2, Muralitharan 10-0-40-1, Chandana 7.2-0-38-0, Jayasuriya 2-0-13-0
Result: England won by seven wickets.
Man of the Match: Darren Gough