England suffered a major collapse as they were defeated by Sri Lanka in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup.

Sri Lanka struggled throughout their innings, scoring just 232 from their 50 overs.

Considering England had surpassed 300 in eight of their last nine innings, it seemed almost certain that they would get over the line.

However, they failed spectacularly.

Jonny Bairstow departed with a duck and both James Vince and Eoin Morgan failed with the bat.

But, Ben Stokes and Joe Root brought some stability to England's innings.

After 24 overs, England were 88-3 and were still 91% favourites to win.

However, it fell apart when Root departed after scoring 57.

England looked like they would still win but they were being torn apart by Sri Lanka's bowlers, collapsing from 127-3 to 186-9.

And it was game over when Mark Wood departed, meaning England lost by 20 runs.

Lasith Malinga finished with four wickets for Sri Lanka, while Dhananjaya de Silva claimed three of his own.

England failed to reach their total despite Stokes' best efforts. He finished 82no, with Root their only other Batsman to score over 21.

Morgan admitted he was frustrated after his side's collapse.

"I felt we were really good with the ball, we adapted to conditions and held Sri Lanka to a chase-able total," he said, per Sky Sports.

"I think we had fault with lack of substantial partnerships in order to chase down a total like that. We had a couple of individual performances that almost got us over the line but it wasn't enough.

"It is frustrating, we are going to lose matches during their tournament. Every game is tough as a one-off match, we spoke about that and it is now about fronting up for the next game.

We need to learn as much as we can from this match and bouncing back well on Tuesday (against Australia).

"We do not see this as a blow to our semi-final chances at all. This is a long tournament and there are huge opportunities in every game.

"Australia is always the fixture you look first at on the World Cup fixture list when they come out. It is always exciting and playing them at the Home of Cricket (Lord's) is even more satisfying."

That was England's second loss of the tournament. They are third with eight points after six games, while Sri Lanka are now two points back in fifth.