England collapsed for the third match in a row in the 2023 World Cup following their defeats to Afghanistan and South Africa. Dawid Malan was the first wicket to fall, while Joe Root was run out before the end of the powerplay. Their last three wickets fell within the space of 19 runs, and their innings came to an end before the end of the 34th over.

Speaking during the change-of-innings interval, Atherton said on Sky Sports Cricket: “I always feel with sporting teams that confidence is a bit like a person’s reputation in life. It takes a long time to build and then an instant to disappear and I think what we’ve seen in this tournament is that confidence just waning away to the point where it seems to be at rock bottom here.

“There are just no batters really in form. You can’t look at that lineup and say ‘he looks in really good touch’. Very few of them have had long periods at the crease in this competition. And then, run outs. The run out of Root, for example. The run out of [Adil] Rashid which is symptomatic of a team that’s just not quite on it.

“You know, he turns around, slow to get back to his ground, not dissimilar to the Bairstow dismissal that we saw during the Ashes. Just away with the fairies and then a really street-smart bit of cricket from Sri Lanka’s captain. Sri Lanka were excellent, England really bad with the bat there.”

Rashid was run out at the non-striker’s end when he failed to get his bat back behind the crease line in time after Maheesh Theekshana bowled a wide down the leg side to David Willey. Kusal Mendis threw down the stumps from behind the striker’s wicket, securing Sri Lanka’s ninth wicket.

“That’s what it’s like with teams that are struggling on confidence,” continued Atherton. “They’re low on confidence, they’re not winning games, they’re changing the team from game to game. So there were three changes before the Mumbai game, there were three changes here.

“They moved away, in Mumbai, from the all-rounder philosophy that they started the tournament with. They went to six batters and five bowlers, they’ve gone back to the all-rounder philosophy here … A lot of changes from game to game, which is a kind of destabilising thing.

“And then, people are just not in good personal form themselves. As I said, none of that top six are in very good form at all. When you put that all together you get the kind of result that we saw just here.”

England dropped Harry Brook and Gus Atkinson for the match against Sri Lanka, replacing them with Liam Livingstone and Chris Woakes. Reece Topley flew home from the tournament with injury following the defeat to South Africa, with Moeen Ali brought back into the side.

A loss to Sri Lanka would be England’s fourth of the tournament, and ensure they stay with just two points from five matches in the competition.