In its second innings, and leading by substantial runs in the second test, England had the upper hand at Lord’s in the second test against Sri Lanka after it had been boosted up by a century from Gus Atkinson.
England led by 8 wickets with a target of 282 and promptly chose not to enforce the follow on. After their turn for batting on day 1, they finished day 2 scoring just 25 runs for the loss of 1 wicket.
It was Kamindu Mendis who impressed the most with the bat for Sri Lanka scoring 74 only for him to be the last man out. He went after Atkinson but could only catch Chris Woakes instead.
“We still managed to get ourselves well ahead of the game after two days with plenty of time left in the match,” Atkinson was quoted by BBC. “If we can really get some runs on the board tomorrow and make it a huge lead then we should be looking to bowl them out again.”
After tea, however, Sri Lanka crumbled again losing its last three wickets with Prabath Jayasuriya (8) holing out to Shoaib Bashir. When he waded too far down the pitch to the line that turned sharply and clipped leg stump.
Ollie Pope then shuffled Mendis attempting to take a single which he could not extend his scores. Mendis is stranded.
On the last session of the day Sri Lanka lost five vital wickets including those of experienced players Mathews and Chandimal in no time. With his last innings of two years behind him, Olly Stone took his second wicket – the first of his over after the lunch break – with Pathum Nissanka snicking a catch off Matthew Potts at leg slip.
It was only for 48 that Mathews and Chandimal were able to generalize the resistance until Potts, on his debut, returned to the over to take 2 wickets and sway the match in England’s favor. Mathews was tempted to in-swinger and was ousted for 22 as he pushed his bat around a straight delivery. While De Silva faced the next three balls without scoring and was held gully with Sri Lanka at 83-5.
Contributing just 23 runs, Chandimal went to Dan Lawrence’s leg slip off Atkinson’s bowling. The situation worsened for Sri Lanka as they went to 87-6. Milan Rathnayake then had a brief spell of aggression scoring 19 runs before sunning to wick on Chris woake leaving Mendis with a tail to wag for a while.
Prior to that Sri Lanka was without both opening batsmen quite early in the innings. Nishan Madushka was too late on a cracking effort and the ball from Woakes contact with the blue sky and the stumps while 8119172063 played Down rep by upwards delivery from Stone both had no more runs.
England resumed at 358 runs for the loss of 7 wickets on the first delivery of the day. Atkinson wasted no time hitting boundaries to Kumara in his first over. The umpire ruled him out for lbw initially but was not given out on review as the replays showed the ball was going down the leg side. A cover drive saw him get to the mark of 99 but it only took a straight drive into the ropes to give him a century soon after.
In the very first session a total of 35 runs were scored by the visiting batsman in the first five overs of the day before Potts was bowled by Asitha Fernando for a score of 21 which was taken behind the wicket off Madushka’s gloves. A total of 118 runs were scored in Atkinson’s innings and that was when Rathnayake took the amazing catch at midwicket off Fernando’s bowling. Lastly, stone went out giving Fernando 5 for 102 as England added 69 runs to its overnight score to stand at 427.
England won the Old Trafford test match by 5 wickets and were aiming to win the series at Lord’s. This means nothing more than that Sri Lanka needs to win at Lord’s to have any chance of winning the series.
Secondly, if we can restrict them to anywhere around 150, 175 (we have) got a possibility of winning the game. Informed sheath reporters despite the challenges which seemed insurmountable.
