A late-innings thrash of 31 in nine balls contributed to England’s record-breaking performance against Afghanistan as Moeen returned to the side in the same week he celebrated his birthday.

Should he keep his place against Sri Lanka at Headingley, the popular all-rounder will become the 22nd Englishman to rack up a century of appearances in the 50-over format, and his time in the side has coincided with the thrilling change of approach under Eoin Morgan’s captaincy.

The ODI game as a whole may have changed beyond recognition, but England have been at the frontier under Morgan, their record number of maximums against Afghanistan a neat illustration of how far the Dubliner has led his players since the ignominy of their 2015 campaign: the total of 25 sixes was three more than England had previously managed in any entire World Cup.

The ultimate aim, of course, is silverware, and on the eve of the Sri Lanka game Moeen said, “That improvement, everybody knows, and we have been talking about it for a while now, but as a team we know that a trophy matters for us and hopefully this is it.

Skipper Karanuratne said, “They have lots of talent and, you know, they did really good things for Sri Lanka in the recent past and I think the only thing we need to do now is come up with a good mindset.”