After a disappointing Asia Cup outing, Sri Lanka will look to return on winning ways when they take on number one ranked ODI side England in the first ODI in Dambulla. Sri Lanka has been poor in ODIs for the last two years and they have had more captains than the number of victories.
Dinesh Chandimal will lead this depleted Sri Lankan side as Angelo Mathews was sacked from ODI captaincy. Spinners Akila Dananjaya and Lakshan Sandakan will be key players for Sri Lanka on these spin-friendly tracks. On the other hand, England who haven't lost any bilateral ODI series since March 2017, will look to stretch their winning streak and have a good chance to prepare themselves against spin.
All the major stats and facts as Sri Lanka take on England in the first ODI match in Dambulla :
1. Head to Head in ODIs -
| Venue | Matches | Won by SL | Won by ENG | Tied | NR |
| Sri Lanka | 21 | 15 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| England | 31 | 13 | 16 | 1 | 1 |
| Neutral | 17 | 6 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Overall | 69 | 34 | 33 | 1 | 1 |
7 - Sri Lanka has lost seven of their last eight ODIs in Dambulla with one no result and their last ODI win at this venue came against Pakistan in August 2014.
38 - Jonny Bairstow needs 38 more runs to complete 2000 runs in ODIs. He will be 27th English player to achieve this feat.
39 - Number of wickets Lasith Malinga has taken at an average of 28.35 in 25 ODIs he played against England - the most by any Sri Lankan bowler.
73.40 - Joe Root's ODI batting average in Sri Lanka. He has scored total 367 runs at this average in 7 innings with one hundred and two fifties.
148 - Number of sixes Eoin Morgan has hit in ODIs for England and needs to hit 2 more sixes to become the first English player to hit 150 sixes in ODI cricket.
970 - Jonny Bairstow has scored 970 runs in ODIs this year - the most by any player and needs 30 more runs to become the first player to score 1000 ODI runs in 2018.
6926 - Upul Tharanga needs 74 more runs to become the eighth Sri Lankan player to achieve the 7000 ODI runs milestone.
