Tea England 285 and 259 for 6 (Root 98*, Foakes 194*) lead Sri Lanka 336 (Silva 85, Karunaratne 63, de Silva 59) by 213 runs
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Joe Root’s century took England’s lead above 200 on the third day in Pallekele.
Root has spoken often of his desire for his side to adopt a positive approach on this tour and put his words into action here. Producing something of a masterclass in how to play the turning ball, Root swept, came down the pitch, used his crease and ran hard in helping his side into a significant lead on a dry pitch that is now offering substantial assistance to spin bowlers. It is Root’s 15th Test century, but only his fourth overseas.
Whatever you think of the England method – whether it’s wise, whether it’s practical, whether it’s based on an innate distrust of their own defence – it is wonderfully entertaining. Here they have scored at something around four-and-a-half an over for most of the day, reacting to adversity by attempting to hit bowlers off their lengths and trusting their own strokeplay.
The flip-side of such positivity is that it tends to involve risk. And, by tea, England had lost six wickets; all of them attempting to sweep. The upshot was that, going into the final session, England had turned an overnight deficit of 46 into a lead by 213. A compelling Test, with fortune shifting from one side to other as often as a drinks break, has yet to take a definitive turn. We could be in for a classic.
Perhaps England will be slightly the more confident side, though. There were signs in the afternoon session that the pitch was starting to behave more unpredictably. One or two balls started to scuttle; one or two others started to rear. While such deliveries were generally away from the danger area, it seems unlikely batting will become any easier.
So well did Root bat that, at times, he has made the pitch appear blameless. Whether it was skipping down the pitch and heaving Dilruwan Perera for six over midwicket or drilling Akila Dananjaya for six more back over his head, Root was in confident mood. He scored 50 in 50 balls in the hour after lunch, reverse-sweeping with power, picking out the holes in the field with skill and rotating the strike with such relentless assurance that England picked up 128 runs in the session. With Jos Buttler, who contributed an increasingly fluent 34, he added 74 in 14.3 overs for the fifth wicket.
Earlier Rory Burns had set the tone for England with a deeply impressive maiden Test half-century. Burns’ aggression appeared to wrong-foot the Sri Lankans as he swept with power, used his feet nicely and ran like a leopard between the wickets.
Despite losing the nightwatchman, Jack Leach, in the second over of the day – Sri Lanka reviewed the original not-out decision – Burns and Keaton Jennings batted with such positivity that they added 73 in 17 overs for the second wicket.
In an attempt to defend the boundaries, gaps appeared in the in-field that allowed singles to be picked off with infuriating ease from a Sri Lankan perspective. And with sweeps interspersed with clips and drives, some of the Sri Lanka bowling became just a little ragged. For the first – but surely not the last – time, the absence of Rangana Herath stung.
Eventually the reverse-sweep was Jennings’ undoing. Attempting to reverse Akila, he was able to connect only with his glove from where the ball bounced off his shoulder and to the slip fielder. Burns and Ben Stokes then missed attempted sweeps to bring Sri Lanka back into the game. To make matters worse for England, both men squandered reviews in optimistic attempts to overturn the decisions.
While Buttler was uncertain initially – after sweeping his way to a fifty in the first innings, he seemed reluctant to play the shot at first in his second – he gradually found his feet and helped Root stretch the lead. And while he was bowled – attempting, sure enough, a reverse-sweep – and Moeen Ali was unfortunate to be adjudged leg-before, so dominant was Root that England continued to attack.