England were on the brink of a dominant series-clinching win over Sri Lanka on Sunday’s fourth day of the second Test at Lord’s.
Sri Lanka were 260-7 at tea, still 223 runs shy of what would be a new Test record fourth-innings winning total of 483, despite fifties from Dinesh Chandimal (58) and Dimuth Karnunaratne (55).
Fast bowler Gus Atkinson, who scored his maiden first-class hundred in England’s first innings 427, led the attack with 3-43 from 13 overs.
His haul helped England close in on their seventh successive win over Sri Lanka after a five-wicket success in last week’s first Test at Old Trafford gave them a 1-0 lead in this three-match series.
Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva (45 not out) and Milan Rathnayake, unbeaten on 26 after being hit on the helmet by an Olly Stone bouncer checked England’s progress with an unbroken stand of 60.
Sri Lanka resumed Sunday on 53-2 in front of a sparse if sun-drenched crowd.
The odds were stacked against them given the highest winning fourth-innings total in any Test is the West Indies’ 418-7 against Australia at St John’s in 2002/03, with the equivalent Lord’s record the West Indies’ 344-1 against England in 1984.
Sri Lanka were in dire straits largely down to Joe Root, whose 103 on Saturday, his second hundred of this match, meant the star batsman set a new England record of 34 Test centuries.
Root also held two slip chances before Saturday’s close as he became just the fourth outfielder to take 200 Test catches.
But early on Sunday, Root reprieved Karunaratne, who had added just two to his overnight 23, when failing to hold a fast-travelling one-handed chance from the opener’s edged cut off Atkinson.
England did break through when Prabath Jayasuriya nicked Chris Woakes to second slip as the nightwatchman’s gutsy 41-ball stay came to an end.
Stone strikes
Karunaratne, 36, drove and pulled Atkinson for fours off successive deliveries on his way to a 98-ball fifty including seven boundaries.
The left-hander, however, was out for 55 shortly before lunch when injury-plagued fast bowler Stone, in his first Test for three years, produced a rising 87 mph (140 kmh) delivery that Karunaratne could only glove down the legside to wicketkeeper Jamie Smith.
Sri Lanka were 136-4 at lunch, with Angelo Mathews 34 not out and wicketkeeper Chandimal unbeaten on 15.
Chandimal counter-attacked early in the afternoon session with three fours in an over against off-spinner Shoaib Bashir on his way to a dashing 42-ball fifty including 40 runs in boundaries
But Mathews, tempted into a big shot by Bashir, fell for 36 when he drove the 20-year-old to mid-off.
Chandimal followed soon afterwards when caught at short leg off bat and pad after Atkinson nipped one back off the pitch.
Kamindu Mendis, boasting a staggeringly high Test average of 92 after scoring his third hundred in four Tests at Old Trafford, had made a defiant 74 in Sri Lanka’s meagre first-innings 196.
But the 25-year-old left-hander, again batting curiously low down the order, fell for just for four on Sunday when he edged Atkinson, bowling from around the wicket, to Ben Duckett in the slips.
Mendis’s exit left Sri Lanka, who have not won any of their eight previous Tests at Lord’s, eyeing defeat at 200-7.
