Chris Woakes is revelling in his role as England’s Mr Reliable

Saturday’s second ODI in Dambulla made England captain Eoin Morgan’s point for him perfectly. Chris Woakes’s excellence, said Morgan, “gets overlooked a lot of the time”.

On Saturday, England reduced Sri Lanka to 31 for four, a decisive blow in a game won by 31 runs on Duckworth-Lewis-Stern. Woakes picked up three of those wickets, but the headlines went to his Warwickshire team-mate, Olly Stone, who took one — albeit a particularly eye-catching one, bouncing out Niroshan Dickwella.

Woakes, always quick to deflect praise, is not the sort to mind that.

While he missed the whole white- ball summer through injury after an outstanding winter in Australia and New Zealand, Woakes’s bowling with the new ball and at the death — not to mention his batting — arguably make him England’s most important player. Of the many baffling decisions made by England at the 2015 World Cup, taking the new ball away from him on the eve of the tournament was up there with the worst.

His record over the last two years in the first 10 overs is remarkable and out on its own globally. With an economy rate of 3.98, he has taken 23 wickets at an average of 18. He is reluctant to admit it, but he has become the leader of England’s attack. He relishes a senior role and, in a competitive field, is one of few pace bowlers guaranteed a place in next year’s World Cup squad if fit.

Wednesday and Saturday’s third and fourth matches of the series (neither of which have reserve days to counter the weather) take place at Pallekele, where Woakes took six for 47 on the last tour here in 2014. Remarkably, those were not his best bowling figures, as he took six for 45 against Australia in Brisbane in 2011, giving him two of England’s three best ODI analyses. That hardly sounds like flying under the radar.

“There’s no magic formula,” he said of bowling with the new ball. “I just try to bowl it where the batsmen doesn’t want it, and be as accurate and consistent as possible. Adapting to the conditions and working out what length you need to bowl is also very important. Getting wickets up front is so crucial and, when you do, there’s a chance to maintain that pressure by giving no width.

“Opening the bowling, you feel you have a senior role, bowling overs up front and tough ones at the end. I don’t always see it as being the leader, because you have good and bad days — I’ll have bad days and someone else steps up. I like bowling the tough overs, you get good rewards from it.”