Twelve weeks after the World Cup, England and Sri Lanka meet in a five-match one-day international series starting Tuesday at The Oval with both teams looking to hit back from disappointing performances at cricket's showpiece event.
England was knocked out in the quarterfinals by Sri Lanka, which went on to be well beaten in the final by India in Mumbai.
England has three captains for each format of the sport and will be led by new ODI skipper Alastair Cook. He took the job briefly on the Bangladesh tour in 2010-11, making the best possible start by winning all three ODIs and both tests.
Cook has already made a better start to his captaincy career than Stuart Broad, who led England to a nine-wicket defeat in the Twenty20 international against Sri Lanka at Bristol on Saturday.
Cook has not played an ODI since taking on Bangladesh in Chittagong on March 5. Following Andrew Strauss's retirement from ODI internationals after England's disastrous World Cup campaign, Cook will have time to make a team of his own ahead of the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand if he can adapt his test-style batting to suit the shorter format.
Cook attracted criticism for his slow scoring in the drawn Lord's test and there are questions about whether he is he the right man for the job. England was 149-2 overnight and working toward a declaration on the fifth morning. Cook scored only 26 of the 111 runs added in the two-hour morning session.
In 26 ODIs, he has scored 858 runs at 33.00 with a strike rate of 71.38. He has hit only one six in his ODI career, off Mahmudullah in Mirpur.
England has made numerous changes to its World Cup team with only five players surviving, though Tim Bresnan was unavailable when the squad was selected because he is recovering from a calf injury. Ian Bell should be back after being dropped from the T20 side on Saturday, his first omission from any England side since September.
Tillekeratne Dilshan is set to return for Sri Lanka after missing the third test at the Rose Bowl because of a fractured thumb after being hit by Chris Tremlett in the Lord's test. Sri Lanka has also changed its side because Muttiah Muralitharan has retired and Upul Tharanga is banned for failing a drug test. Allrounder Angelo Mathews returns after a thigh injury.
England was expected to win the test series, but Sri Lanka is an excellent one-day side and the bookmakers reckon this series will be a closer contest. Overall, Sri Lanka has won 19 and lost six of their last 28 ODIs, with three no results. Away from home, the Sri Lankans have won 10 of their past 15 matches. England has 13 wins, 14 losses and one tie in its past 28 games.
Previous Series
There has only been one previous five-match one-day series between the two sides in England. That was in 2006 and Sri Lanka won all five matches by convincing margins. Sri Lanka is third in the ICC rankings and England fifth, with a 13-point gap between the teams. Another 5-0 victory would take Sri Lanka to second place above India and behind Australia. A 5-0 win to England would ensure both sides are level on points in fourth place.
