Sri Lanka vs England Prediction: Backing Sri Lanka yet again

Jamie Pacheco previews the 2nd ODI between Sri Lanka and England, starting 09:00 on Saturday, January 24 and live on TNT Sports 1.  

Jamie thinks it’s pretty crazy stuff for the hosts to be outsiders again, despite the threat of rain possibly playing into England’s hands, while that man Joe Root is being trusted to follow up Thursday’s impressive knock with another and top score at 14/5...

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

*You can check out all of our Cricket Odds over at betfred.com

Team News:

Sri Lanka  

Sri Lanka played exactly like you'd expect Sri Lanka to play at home in Sri Lanka.  

Over and over of accurate, menacing, suffocating spin on a low, slow, turning wicket that didn't yield results to begin with, but eventually did.  

Good for them, good for us because we had them at 11/10 to win the game.  

Seven bowlers were used, six of them took wickets. Dunith Wellalage ended up being the man of the match for his all-around efforts, but there were plenty of other good candidates.   

That includes Kusal Mendis, whose 93 not out made a huge difference to the outcome of the match.  

Remarkably, they did all this without their best bowler of all in Hasaranga. They'll probably play the same team unless Hasaranga comes in.   

England 

Negatives: too many runs conceded in the death overs, some poor fielding and an old-school Sub-continent batting collapse after what was actually a pretty good start with the bat.  

Adil Rashid was good, Liam Dawson bowled plenty of dot balls, and Sam Curran at least had the sense to take pace off the ball, a lesson not learnt by Craig Overton, by the way. To be fair to Overton, he did his best to give England hope till the bitter end with some big blows with the bat, to make the score appear more respectable than it actually was.  

Joe Root and Ben Duckett played well, Root looking far more fluent, though.  

Harry Brook's mind must be all over the place after what's gone on in the past few weeks and his dismissal showed it.  

Will Jacks should come in for Rehan Ahmed; Jacks was meant to play in the first one but was unwell. Tom Banton could come in for Zak Crawley.  

Pitch and conditions 

We're at Colombo again so we should know precisely what to expect: a turning wicket where batting first is the way to go, where 260-270 on the board should well be enough and where pace bowlers are almost redundant.  

However, there is a key factor at play here, and that's the distinct possibility of some rain.  

It's never easy knowing when exactly the rain might come, how many overs we might lose or how exactly conditions might change if/when it does, though.    

Match Winner odds. 

SL are even this time, cut just a little from the 11/10 that they were last time out. England are still favourites, though, at 4/5.  

The only possible reason why the odds-compilers think it's acceptable to lay those sorts of prices is the rain: they clearly think that a reduced match will play into England's hands and that damp conditions make SL's spinners less potent.  

The possible rain is also the only reason why I'm not having a huge bet here, though I may well regret that one. 

Even if it is reduced, by how much? Are England that good in shorter matches and SL that bad? No. Oh, one last thing: Hasaranga coming into the side, if he does, will make them a far better team.  

So I'll keep this to a 1.5 point bet but like I say, I may be making a mistake here.  

*For all the latest and live Sri Lanka vs England 2nd ODI Odds then head over to betfred.com 

England Top Batsman  

Joe Root is the only player to have come out of both the Ashes and the first game with any credit.  

Then again, he's been England's best batsman for over a decade, so that shouldn't come as any big surprise.  

He looked in great touch, has a good record on the subcontinent, is their best player of spin, and lost to Duckett as top bat by just one run on Thursday. All good enough reasons to back him at 14/5.  

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2025:

• Points Staked: 146
• Points Returned: 151.7 
• Final P/L: +5.7pts 

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2026:  

• Points Staked: 7.5
• Points Returned: 11.01
• Current P/L: +3.51

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...