Sri Lanka will host England with a dogged batting display on the third day of the first test in Galle; guests close at 156-2, slowing down with 130 runs; Joe Root gets 228 – his fourth double test and passes 8,000 test runs – as England scored 421
Last updated: 16/01/21 1:27 f
5:55
The best of the action from day three of the first Test as Joe Root reaches his fourth double and Sri Lanka fights back
The best of the action from day three of the first Test as Joe Root reaches his fourth double and Sri Lanka fights back
England captain Joe Root completed the fourth double century of a trial run before Sri Lanka hit back with the bat to delay the tourist victory on day three of the series ’opening.
Root (228 from 321 balls) followed his 200 against Lord Sri Lanka in 2014, 254 best in the post against Pakistan in Manchester in 2016 and 226 against New Zealand in Hamilton in November 2019 with brilliant innings in Galle as England made 421 to earn a 286-run lead on the first innings.
The 30-year-old, aptly, swept four to lift his double ton from 291 balls before dismissing the last act of an attractive opening session in which 101 runs were scored – the introducing 8,000th Root in test cricket – and dropped six wikis.
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Root would have been hoping for early wickets when Sri Lanka – skiing for 135 self-inflicted on the first day – started their second dig, just for openers Lahiru Thirimanne (76no) and Kusal Perera (62) led a back-to-back fight while the guests shouted something to close their first kamikaze innings at 156-2, slowing before 130, while a bad light went on involved.
England spinners Dom Bess and Jack Leach struggled for consistency, although Leach eliminated Kusal Mendis (15) with an excellent delivery late in the day that turned, kicked and found the edge.
England – who have welcomed Moeen Ali back to their camp after the end of their coronavirus quarantine – are still in a good position, thanks in large part to Root ‘s brilliant knock, which was the second highest score of the team in Asia, behind just 263 Sir Alastair Cook against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi in 2015.
Cook (5) and Wally Hammond (7) are now the only English batsmen to hit more than hundreds of doubles in the Root test cricket.
Moreover, of the seven English bats who made 8,000 runs – Root, Cook, Graham Gooch, Alec Stewart, David Gower, Kevin Pietersen and Sir Geoffrey Boycott – only Pietersen (176 innings) has made it faster and Root (178).
Root started again Saturday morning at 168 and had advanced to 196 before a ball change – the old man went wrong after Root six – gave Asitha two wick in so much delivery. Fernando.
First-time sailor Jos Buttler (30) got behind him from a ball that moved away – ending Root’s 68th position for the fifth wicket – and then put Sam Curran (0) through the gate. first ball with a slight swing inward.
2:15 Watch Root’s 228 best against Sri Lanka in Galle as he got more than half of his side of 421
Root reached 200 in the following, which ended when Bess ran (0) – the last one sacrificing his wicket after Root went down on the pitch while Sri Lanka appealed to It out on the sheaf.
Leach (4) and Mark Wood (2) came and went – Dilruwan Perera (4-109) with their wickets – while Stuart Broad finished unnoticed on 11 of 13 balls after they fouled. dismissal of a lbw post twice off Dilruwan in one over and then hitting a consecutive run off Fernando in the next.
Root also passed 8,000 test runs in his engines – only Kevin Pietersen had accomplished the feat faster for England
Root then headed out to a deep midwicket off Dilruwan as England lost their last six wickets for 49 runs – a clatter that was not repeated in the second session as Perera and Thirimanne held on firmly through to tea.
Perera took the seventh-and-a-half test before suffering a severe blow to the hand from a ferocious Wood bouncer – the opener in visible pain leading to Sri Lankan medicine applying some tape.
Perera went through to the interval but then ran out in the 38th when he cracked a wide short ball from Curran to Leach at deep level, finishing his opening partnership with Thirimanne at 101.
Kusal Perera spent half a century fighting for Sri Lanka on the third day
England also took the opportunity to remove Thirimanne shortly after reaching the fifty for the seventh time in test cricket with Dom Sibley striking a grip at the back.
There was another disappointment for the tourists when their review of Thirimanne lbw to Leach on 61 came to nothing – the discovery of a ball showing the spinner’s delivery would have turned past the stump of the legs.
Mendis avoided ignorance at the fifth straight test duck, smiling as he swept Leach for a single to get off the mark, but shook the same bowler behind him to Buttler near stumps as his stand ended with Thirimanne at 54 and England earns late construction.
Watch day four of the first Test between Sri Lanka and England live on Sky Sports Cricket from 4.15am on Sunday.