Angelo Mathews passes 50 as Sri Lanka edge into lead
Tea Sri Lanka 135 and 302 for 7 (Mathews 51 *, Hasaranga 3 *, Bess 3-81) lead England 421 with 16 runs
One hundred years since Lahiru Thirimanne and an unbeaten half-century from Angelo Mathews have helped Sri Lanka overcome their lack of first-innings on the fourth day in Galle.
Despite starting their second innings with a deficit of 286 runs, Sri Lanka moved back into the lead shortly before tea on the fourth day. However, in the meantime, Sri Lanka led just 16 and had only three wikis in their hands. England is still in the dominant position.
There are a couple of eyes of hope for Sri Lanka. One comes with the expectation that rain could play a big part in the rest of this game – a few spots fell in the afternoon session, although there were no delays – and the other is the possibility that even a small target could be challenging for England. It was obvious, for example, that the stroke that saw Sri Lanka move into the underdog lead from Mathews after a delivery from Jack Leach scoured the floor. Later, delivery jump in a place similar to shoulder height.
The fourth batting could still be very difficult and the example of victory against India could be here in 2015 – when Sri Lanka surrendered the first innings lead but put out the India for 112 in the fourth innings to win by 63 – that may give hope and encouragement.
For the most part, there are Mathews. He gave him 164 balls to reach his 50s but, by standing against a long time, he has kept his side’s hopes alive in this game. And, as he showed at Leeds in 2014, he can still hurt England in this situation.
But if Sri Lanka are going to escape a draw from this game, they will be especially grateful for Thirimanne’s efforts. His only other era at this level came on this ground in March 2013. However, since that game against Bangladesh, he had averaged 19.16 in 27 Tests coming into this game. Having failed in the first innings, there is no real reason to suggest, before he walked out batting on the third day, that his career – and the hopes of Sri Lanka – about saving nothing from this game – hanging with a thread.
However, showing both patience and awakening, he showed good defensiveness and effectively dislodged the dislocated ball in reaching his first century in 54 Test sessions.
In the end, it was the new ball that did that for Thirimanne. After Sam Curran moved a couple away from him, he found a man to keep his own and inside to take Thirimanne’s bat inside with him. Jos Buttler, who gets a reasonable game as a keeper, held a test chance.
The two England front spinners – Leach and Dom Bess – have so far shared five wikis of second innings. In reality, however, none of them had been at the optimum with the number of balls hitting the bat just going to show what could be achieved with more consistency. Because while this surface is a great help for spinning mattresses, there have been too many loose balls to allow them to lift weights.
With England spinners proving a bit unreliable, Root was then believed to turn to his sailors to give him some control in the afternoon session. Stuart Broad responded with four maids in a five-time spell, and Mark Wood conceded just six runs from his five-pointers. As a result, Niroshan Dickwella and Mathews gave up 23.4 to add 48 runs.
That frustration may have caused Dickwell to fall. Trying to run a short ball to the third, he only managed to put the ball into Buttler’s gloves. In the next step, Dasun Shanaka was beaten on the fly by Leach and went effectively. Sri Lanka had fought hard but, with four sessions to go, it was still hard to get over the damage done by their first debacle innings.
George Dobell is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo