England captain Eoin Morgan happy with five-man ODI bowling attack

By Sam Drury

Eoin Morgan praises Chris Woakes and insists he is confident in his decision to only select five bowlers

England captain Eoin Morgan insists he is happy with a five-man bowling attack in 50-over cricket.

England were denied the chance to take a 2-0 lead in the ODI series as the rain came down with the hosts 16-1 after four overs in reply to Sri Lanka's 248-9.

Morgan was full of praise for Chris Woakes after he put in another impressive display, taking 3-34, and also spoke about his side's fielding, Joe Root's bowling and his reasons for leaving out Moeen Ali...

On the performance at Bristol...

We were very confident [of chasing down 249] and very proud of the way the bowlers performed - they backed up their performance at Edgbaston. I thought our disciplines were a lot better and in the field we made some good contributions. Restricting them to 250 on this small ground was a good achievement.

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After the drinks break we came out and took two wickets straight away which is a massive boost but almost in the build up to that you felt that something had to give - either [Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews] were going to take the game away from us or if we took wickets, we could take the momentum back. It was an important stage leading into the last 10 overs and we know they can be very dangerous.

On a five-man bowling attack...

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I think they've coped well with it so far. I haven't felt a bowler light at any stage. I think having Joe Root as well helps. We used him a bit at Edgbaston and he's not just a part-timer, I think he's better than that. I'm quite confident throwing him the ball if need be down the line.

On Chris Woakes...

Image: Chris Woakes continued his good form with figures of 3-34

I think he's taken a lot of confidence from being selected in the Test match team. He showed in the first game, his contribution not only with the ball but with the bat as well, shows how a good performance with the ball can help him contribute with the bat. With the ball today, he didn't immediately take wickets but he hung in there and took three towards the end.

On England's fielding...

I wouldn't say I'm happy. I think we're building a lot of momentum towards where we want to be. We set extremely high standards and we look to the latter stages of the World T20 and where we were at as a side, I thought was magnificent. That's the sort of standard that we like to set. We are being harsh on ourselves because we want to be the best, we know we can take a lot of energy and confidence from our fielding so we want to get as close to that mark as we can.

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On Chris Jordan replacing Moeen Ali...

The reason for the change was that we looked at the wicket and the nature of the ground, being so small and just a chip down the ground, having two spinners in tandem was going to be extremely difficult to balance as a captain. I do think it worked, it's very difficult when you've not been in the team to come in and perform but Chris Jordan certainly did a lot of good things today.

Watch the fourth ODI between England and Sri Lanka at the Oval from 12.30pm on Wednesday, live on Sky Sports 2 HD.

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