Jason Roy in line to return on home ground as SL eye first win of tour

In some ways, the shellacking they received at Chester-le-Street was an improvement for Sri Lanka. No one got injured, no one broke curfew (that we know of), and at 80 for 4 in England's chase, it was possible to discern the first tremors of a full-blown wobble. Had Kusal Perera held onto a fairly straightforward catch when Moeen Ali edged his first ball behind, the result may have been in question; instead, Joe Root put his 150 ODIs of experience to good use in overseeing a 91-run stand that pretty much settled the matter.

Sometimes you've got to take the positives where you find them. A young seam attack with a combined 33 caps bowled with vim to check England's aggressive early advances, Dushmantha Chameera again impressing; Wanindu Hasaranga gave further notice of his qualities, batting above No. 7 for the first time in ODIs and recording a sparky half-century; and Perera improved his average as captain to 59.25. Crumbs of comfort, then, if not exactly a bread trail towards guaranteed success.

Following a sixth defeat from seven, Sri Lanka are rooted to the bottom of the World Cup Super League and already looked destined to having to scrap it out at the 2022 qualifier against a clutch of highly motivated Associate nations. In that sense, while losing the services of three senior players for an unsanctioned trip into Durham certainly won't help their chances in England, it might help Perera and Mickey Arthur forge a spirit of common purpose that will benefit the team in the long run.

England, by contrast, are top of the table - despite having won only half their games - and will be aiming to ensure they take a full 20 points from the remaining matches at The Oval and Bristol. As in the T20I series, their bowling options were more than enough to keep Sri Lanka in check, even with Hasaranga landing a few blows on Adil Rashid. Chris Woakes confirmed his status as one of England's best bowlers of all time in the 50-over format, while David Willey refuses to be easily discounted, marking his 50th cap with a three-wicket haul.

The batting was scratchier, with Root's cool head required to see England home - and even he gave a half-chance to long leg, which Chameera couldn't cling on to, when the game was in the balance. Eoin Morgan is rarely one to fret about his own form, but extending a run of England white-ball innings without a significant score to 15 counts as a minor headache for the captain.

The bigger picture for England's limited-overs cricket looks impressive, as it has for a while - even if they will currently struggle to knock the footballers off the back pages. But work remains to be done on improving the game's reach, and this Oval match is being branded as the ACE ODI, in recognition of the Afro-Caribbean Engagement Programme, which began at Surrey, opening a third centre in Bristol.