Joe Root continued his sparkling summer but several of his England teammates could not capitalise after Sri Lanka surprisingly elected to bowl at Lord’s under clear blue skies.
Root’s 81 not out is a fifth fifty-plus score in his last seven innings and underpinned a total of 200 for five at tea on the opening day of the second Test on a relatively blameless surface.
England, though, were in charitable mood with all of their top three out to loose strokes, with Ollie Pope registering his third successive single-figure score since stepping in as captain for the injured Ben Stokes.
Pope admitted he had struggled to separate his batting and leadership duties last week, making two scores of six in an otherwise successful debut as skipper as England won the first of three Tests.
He was presented with a clean slate as Sri Lanka ignored the overheads and asked England to bat first but, after Lahiru Kumara’s extra pace accounted for makeshift opener Dan Lawrence for nine, Pope horribly miscued a pull off Asitha Fernando, top-edging to Dhananjaya de Silva for one off 10 balls.
Ben Duckett made a typically busy 40 before reverse sweeping Prabath Jayasuriya to Kumara on the fence but Root was a reassuring presence in the middle – and he needs just 19 runs in the final session to equal Sir Alastair Cook’s England record of 33 Test centuries.
Dhananjaya’s decision to bowl first looked to have backfired with scant early movement, with Duckett settling in by twice driving and late cutting through the off-side for three fours in an over off Fernando.
Lawrence got a streaky inside edge for four but he was unsettled by the extra pace of Kumara, advancing uncertainly and prodding at one that moved just enough up the slope to take the edge and carry through to Nishan Madushka, Sri Lanka’s third wicketkeeper this series.
Kumara’s next ball reared up at Pope, just evading the outside edge, before he cut England’s number three in half moments later. Pope’s luck then ran out as he injudiciously tried to whip Fernando into the leg-side only to sky high into the air, with Dhananjaya settling under a looping catch.
Root effortlessly clipped his first ball for four before milking Sri Lanka’s bowlers backward of square. He had a let-off on 12 after being rapped on the pad by Kumara, with a Sri Lanka review showing umpire’s call on hitting the stumps.
He welcomed Jayasuriya with a sweep for four but Duckett perished on the reverse in the slow left-armer’s first over. Usually a shot he plays so well, Duckett instead got a top edge to deep point.
Harry Brook was free-scoring after lunch but he fell lbw to Fernando for 33 from a carbon copy of a delivery where Root had earlier escaped. Both would have brushed leg-stump but the umpire’s finger stayed down for Root and went up for Brook, with the on-field decisions upheld on review.
With Jayasuriya operating at one end in tandem with Sri Lanka’s seamers at the other, Root went to his half-century, as he and Jamie Smith led England into calmer waters.
Two streaky edges off Milan Rathnayake both whizzed to the boundary but were rare false shots from Root before Smith fell to a full-blooded push off Rathnayake, with Madushka taking his second catch.
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