car Sri Lanka 236 and 107 are 4 (Matthews 48*, Kamindu 6*) trails uk 358 (Smith 111, Brook 56, Ashita 4-102) 15 points
Those moments followed a disastrous three-over four just before lunch when Nishan Madushka and Kusal Mendis were ducked by Chris Woakes and Gus Atkinson respectively. And after Potts held Dhananjaya de Silva lbw for 11, Sri Lanka were 107-4, effectively five, at teatime. They were still 15 runs behind, with the extended final session of the day looming, and two more (admittedly weather-threatened) days to go before the weekend.
When England resumed play at 259-6, they had a slender 23-run lead, but with most of their hopes of a bigger lead resting on the shoulders of Smith, the youngest batsman known to the world, it was a far cry from the competitive scenario that had seemed promising the previous night.
After resuming play on 72, Smith quickly found his pace against a Sri Lankan attack that had sorely lacked the intensity of the first half of England’s innings, and when Ashita Fernando smashed two boundaries through the covers in his first over of the day, he looked set to rush towards a three-figure score.
However, after his 95 against West Indies in the previous Test innings at Edgbaston in July, Smith was noticeably weaker and instead held firm for the seventh wicket with Gus Atkinson for 66. Atkinson took 20 off 65, the third consecutive such performance in an England innings.
Once again, England’s progress was aided by the dubious Sri Lankan field order, with Atkinson often providing easy singles through the off side to keep the strike rolling, while Smith himself took 27 deliveries to score the last 14 of his hundred, before clipping it firmly on his pads through Milan Ratnayake’s square leg. At 24 and 40 days old, he became the youngest England men’s keeper to score a Test century.
Moments later, Rathnayake had his moment. It was his maiden Test wicket, but perhaps not in the way he had imagined. Atkinson lobbed Chandimal a leg-side delivery, and his low take was upheld by the umpire. And just when Smith looked set to be free, Prabath Jayasuriya lobbed a quicker, wider seaming delivery, and Chandimal did a great job of catching the thick deflection and slamming it against the stumps.
Wood came into the gap and was given full permission to swing in the way the Buzzball approved. Sri Lanka got the new ball as soon as it was given and it backfired as Wood slapped Ashita’s first two balls of the comeback through the off side for four runs. Jayasurya was then flat through the covers and Wood threw Ashita high over midwicket, making an exceptional catch with one hand from the stands but with a little dripping from the glass in the other hand.
Ashita ended Wood’s fun in the same over, taking his fourth wicket of the innings with 22 off 13 balls, but Potts delighted the crowd with a superb ramp that saw him bowl 17 off 23 balls, hooking four over the keeper’s head and holing out at square leg.
Normally that would have been the case in the session, but with rain disrupting Thursday’s play and time added up, Sri Lanka were forced to come out for an awkward three-over blast before the break, and soon found themselves wishing they hadn’t.
After the first two balls of the innings, Madushka rested his shoulder on Woakes’ inswinger and heard the death rattle. And in the very next over, Kusal slid forward on Atkinson’s fourth delivery on the off-stump line and snuck low to man of the moment Smith. They limped off to lunch 10-2 after one of the saddest mini-sessions imaginable.
England’s approach after the restart was to go cross-seamer, sacrificing the short-term threat of new-ball swing for the long-term benefit of a scratched ball and the potential for reverse swing. This allowed Karunaratne and Mathews to settle into a calm 50-run stand that hinted at better times to come. But the inevitable speed bump came, and Wood delivered it well.
As has become the custom of the summer, the crowd swarmed forward one by one when Wood bowled the 14th over of the innings, and he lived up to the expectation with his first ball exoset. Rounding the wicket, and behind the length, it landed on Karunaratne’s abdomen so quickly that he didn’t even know he had snatched it before it blew through the padding and flew to Harry Brooke on the cordon. A few choice words over the stump mike confirmed he had “hit cover”, and Sneako confirmed the inside edge.
Three overs later, Wood was up to speed for another horrific body blow. Having already broken Kevin Sinclair’s wrist in the West Indies series, this time he wrenched Chandimal’s right thumb clean off the bat handle with another vicious lift. A physio was called in, but it was confirmed that Chandimal’s thumb was swollen even while undergoing treatment and he was soon sent to hospital for a scan.
Andrew Miller is the UK editor for ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
