England vs Sri Lanka Preview: With the top four settled, what are these two sides playing for?

England have been marching towards their first World Cup. Can they continue their dominance against Sri Lanka?

This is the ultimate David v Goliath face-off at this ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. England are the world’s top-ranked ODI side. They are the strongest contenders to lift the trophy and have already taken firm steps towards making the final four.

Sri Lanka are a struggling one-day side. They have a lone win from five matches. But two of those produced no result, giving them a point from each, as a result of which they are still hanging in there, around the mid-table.

England will again be without Jason Roy for this clash as he continues to recover from the hamstring tear he suffered against West Indies. But England have such depth in resources, and have so much going right for them that they can look past the Roy injury and still come out and dominate. Doing so could give them yet another win, and a win should take them one step closer to the semi-finals.

As for Sri Lanka, they face an uphill battle, but have enough games left to try and make something out of this campaign. Dimuth Karunaratne, their captain, has excelled with the bat so far, but can he inspire the rest of the team with those performances? For cricket's sake, the ICC need Sri Lanka to make a fight of this game. The last thing needed in the remaining 18 matches is one-sided dead-rubbers. England will be looking to fine tune their squad, and form, whilst Sri Lanka will be hoping to salvage pride, and return to Sri Lanka with something positive from this campaign.

WATCH OUT FOR - Jonny Bairstow

Bairstow has refound his form but yet to pass 100 in this years World Cup.

The English opener fell 10 short of a century on Tuesday, but has refound the form which looked like disappearing at the start of the tournament. After missing out on the three figures on Tuesday, and yet to pass 100 so far in this years World Cup, he will be looking to go big against Sri Lanka to break the shackles ahead of some big games against Australia, India and New Zealand, before the finals. PREDICTION

Sri Lanka will simply be too far out of their depth to challenge in this one. England have been too dominant already in this World Cup, and Sri Lanka have been abysmal. England didn't take it easy on Afghanistan and I doubt they will against Sri Lanka either.

England to win by 60-100 runs, 7-8 wickets STATISTICS HEAD TO HEAD ODI Matches: 74 England: 36

Sri Lanka: 35 Tied: 1 N/R: 2

HEAD TO HEAD IN WORLD CUPS

Matches: 10 England: 6 Sri Lanka: 4

WORLD CUP RECORDS

England

Matches: 77

Won: 45

Lost: 30

Best Result- Runners Up (1979, 1987, 1992)

Sri Lanka

Matches: 76

Won: 35

Lost: 37

Tie: 1

Best Result - Winners (1996)

ODI Record since World Cup 2015:

England

Matches: 93

Won: 62

Lost: 24

Sri Lanka

Matches: 88

Won: 24

Lost: 57