Tom Banton's Maiden Century Buries a Series Sri Lanka Nearly Stole

England did not just win the third ODI at The Oval, they buried it. A 223-run margin is the biggest number on the scorecard, but it is also the least revealing thing about a series that had England celebrating a 89-run opening win, then losing by 16 runs in the very next match. Tom Banton's maiden ODI century gave Sunday its headline, and it deserved one, but the story of this series is how violently it swung before England found the version of themselves capable of producing a performance their captain called "near-perfect."

Banton's day to remember

Banton had never made an ODI hundred before Sunday. He made sure the wait was worth it, scoring 126 off 105 balls, his career-best score, laced with 21 boundaries and five sixes. He was eventually out attempting a sixth maximum, caught by Malinga at long-on, but by then he had already dragged England from a shaky start to a position of complete control. He was named player of the match, and it is hard to argue with that after an innings that set the tone for everything England did afterwards.

That start needed rescuing. Ben Duckett fell for a duck in the innings' eighth ball, clean bowled by Dilshan Madushanka, and Joe Root never got going either, managing just 18 off 37 balls before he was dismissed leg before by Janith Liyanage. England were two down cheaply against a Sri Lanka attack that had won the previous match. Banton's response was to counter-attack rather than consolidate, and it worked.

Brook and Cox turn control into carnage

Banton did not do it alone. Captain Harry Brook made 77 off 66 balls, and the pair put on 150 runs together before Brook was caught on the boundary by Dunith Wellalage. That partnership is what turned a recovery into a launchpad, and it let Jordan Cox, in irresistible form, tee off later in the innings without the pressure of rebuilding anything.

Cox made 76 off just 52 balls, reaching his half-century off 42 deliveries, and alongside a brisk 25 off 21 from Will Jacks he helped push England to 355 for 7. Sri Lanka's Dilhara Fernando finished with figures of 3 for 52 and was the pick of the bowlers, though two of his three wickets, Cox's and Liam Dawson's, came with the final two balls of the innings, a small mercy for a Sri Lanka attack that had been put to the sword for 49 overs.

England's target for the tourists was 356, and the chase never got within sight of it. Sri Lanka's innings folded so far short of that mark that the eventual 223-run margin barely felt like an accurate summary of how one-sided the chase actually was.

Baker strikes, then Sri Lanka implode

If Banton supplied the highlight reel, Sonny Baker supplied the opening blow. He removed Pathum Nissanka for 1 with just the eighth ball of the Sri Lanka innings, his maiden ODI wicket, and the tourists never recovered any rhythm. Kusal Mendis fought hard for 35 off 26 balls, top-scoring for Sri Lanka for the second successive game, but around him the innings disintegrated. Sri Lanka slid from 36 for 1 to 82 for 6 in the space of just ten overs, a collapse so steep it left them, in Sky Sports' own words, with no recognised batters remaining.

Liam Dawson finished with 3 for 17, taking three of the last four Sri Lanka wickets, while Gus Atkinson added 2 for 26. Between them they made sure the tail folded for a whimper of runs, and England confirmed victory with 21.5 overs still unused. It was as complete a bowling performance as England have produced this summer, and it came on the back of a total that had already put the game out of reach.

The run-out that needed five minutes to settle

In among the collapse sat the game's strangest moment. Pavan Rathnayake, on 18, was run out in a passage of play that left both teams needing an explanation. Jordan Cox took the bails off the stumps before he appeared to be in control of the ball, only for Jofra Archer's direct-hit throw to then dismantle the same stumps moments later. Both umpires and players spent close to five minutes discussing the incident before Archer's throw was ruled the legitimate act of dismissal and Rathnayake was sent on his way. It was the kind of passage that resists any tidy explanation, and Sri Lanka's collapse accelerated immediately afterwards, with Charith Asalanka and Wellalage both gone within the next eight balls.

Brook's verdict, Mendis's mea culpa

Harry Brook was in no doubt about the scale of the performance afterwards, telling Sky Sports it was "a near-perfect performance" in which "everyone chipped in." He was equally clear about what England are trying to build, saying the side wants "to win when they are not in our favour and when they are, we want to nail sides," a line that reads as an admission that Sunday's rout was the easy version of the job, not the only version England have had to do this series.

Kusal Mendis offered no excuses. Asked about the collapse, the Sri Lanka captain was blunt: "We made too many mistakes." He pointed to fielding lapses, including his own, and flagged that his side would need to sharpen up before their next assignment in Pakistan. It was a rare moment of clarity in a series that, for Sri Lanka, oscillated between a genuinely impressive second-ODI win and a third-ODI performance with no recognised batters left standing by the 82-run mark.

What the swing actually tells England

The temptation after a 223-run win is to treat the whole series as one-way traffic. It was not. England won all three T20s that preceded this series and then split the opening two ODIs before Sunday's rout, meaning the decider genuinely needed deciding. Brendon McCullum's side finished the home summer with 12 wins from 14 white-ball games, a record that will please the dressing room, but the 16-run defeat in the second ODI is the more instructive data point for anyone assessing where this team still has gaps. Banton's century and the bowlers' collective effort on Sunday were as complete as England have looked all summer. Whether that version turns up as reliably as the one that lost three days earlier is the question McCullum's side still has to answer.

Research: This article uses the archived evidence supplied for this story. Story inspiration: Sky Sports' original report.