Lunch Sri Lanka 236 and 10 for 2 (Mathews 6*, Karunaratne 4*) trail England 358 (Smith 111, Brook 56, Asitha 4-102) by 112 runs
Jamie Smith delivered on his rich promise on the third morning at Emirates Old Trafford, easing through to his maiden Test century in only his fifth innings, before England’s seamers cemented their control of the first Test against Sri Lanka.
By the end of a morning session that had been extended by 15 minutes to make up for time lost to the rain on Thursday, Sri Lanka were already in deep strife in their second innings, with Nishan Madushka and Kusal Mendis both falling for ducks, to Chris Woakes and Gus Atkinson respectively. At 10 for 2, they still trailed by 112 at the break, after England had added 99 runs to their overnight 259 for 6, to finish on 358 all out.
After resuming on 72 not out, Smith was quickly into his stride against a Sri Lanka attack that lacked a degree of the intensity that they had brought to their endeavours in the first half of England’s innings. His first shot in anger was a scorching drive through long-off from Asitha Fernando‘s opening delivery of the day, and when he added a second in the over through extra cover, it seemed he might be in a hurry to notch his three figures.
And yet, having fallen for 95 against West Indies at Edgbaston in his previous Test innings in July, Smith then throttled back appreciably, settling instead on building a resolute seventh-wicket stand of 66 with Atkinson, whose own score of 20 from 65 was his third such contribution in consecutive England innings.
Once again, England’s progress was aided by some questionable Sri Lanka field placings, with Atkinson frequently offered easy singles through the off side to keep the strike rotating, while Smith himself took 27 deliveries to pick off the final 14 runs of his hundred, with the moment coming up with a firm clip off the pads through square leg off Milan Rathnayake.
Moments later, Rathnayake had a moment of his own to savour, a maiden Test wicket – though perhaps not in the manner that he might have envisaged, as Atkinson feathered a leg-side delivery through to Dinesh Chandimal, whose low take was confirmed by an umpire’s review.
The net effect of the two moments was to energise Smith’s innings once more, as he skipped down the wicket to whip Prabath Jayasuriya through wide long-on for this third boundary of the morning. But, just when it seemed he was set to cut loose, Jayasuriya fizzed down a faster, wider seaming delivery, and Chandimal did brilliantly to cling onto a fat deflection, standing up to the stumps.
Into the breach stepped Wood, with full licence to swing in his Bazball-approved manner. Sri Lanka took the new ball as soon as it was available, which arguably backfired as Wood thumped the first two deliveries of Asitha’s comeback over through the off side for four. Jayasuriya was then flat-batted through the covers for another four, before Wood launched Asitha high over midwicket for an exceptional one-handed catch from a spectator in the crowd, albeit with a bit of spillage from the pint in his other.
Asitha ended his fun in the same over, bowling Wood for 22 from 13 to land his fourth wicket of the innings, but Potts kept the crowd entertained with a cameo of his own, his 17 from 23 featuring one excellently picked-up ramp for four over the keeper’s head before he holed out to square leg.
Ordinarily, that would have been that for the session. But, with time being made up due to the rain that disrupted Thursday’s play, Sri Lanka had to emerge for an awkward three-over burst before the break – and soon wished they hadn’t. After negotiating the first two balls of the innings, Madushka shouldered arms to a Woakes inswinger and heard the death rattle. Then, in the very next over, Kusal pressed forward on an off-stump line to Atkinson’s fourth delivery, and snicked through low to the man of the moment, Smith.
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
