Innings England 358 (Smith 111, Brook 56, Asitha 4-102) lead Sri Lanka 236 by 122 runs
By the end of their innings, England had extended their overnight lead of 23 to an imposing 122. Though Smith himself fell for 111 to a sharp piece of glovework from Dinesh Chandimal, Mark Wood and Matthew Potts kept the runs flowing with some lusty tail-end biffing, before Potts was last man out in a total of 358.
And yet, having fallen for 95 against West Indies at Edgbaston in his previous Test innings in July, Smith then throttled back appreciably, settling instead on building a resolute seventh-wicket stand of 66 with Gus Atkinson, whose own score of 20 from 65 was his third such contribution in consecutive England innings.
Once again, England’s progress was aided by some questionable Sri Lanka field placings, with Atkinson frequently offered easy singles through the off side to keep the strike rotating, while Smith himself took 27 deliveries to pick off the final 14 runs of his hundred, with the moment coming up with a firm clip off the pads through square leg off Milan Rathnayake.
Moments later, Rathnayake had a moment of his own to savour, a maiden Test wicket – though perhaps not in the manner that he might have envisaged, as Atkinson feathered a leg-side delivery through to Chandimal, whose low take was confirmed by an umpire’s review.
The net effect of the two moments was to energise Smith’s innings once more, as he skipped down the wicket to whip Prabath Jayasuriya through wide long-on for this third boundary of the morning. But, just when it seemed he was set to cut loose, Jayasuriya fizzed down a faster, wider seaming delivery, and Chandimal did brilliantly to cling onto a fat deflection, standing up to the stumps.
Into the breach stepped Wood, with full licence to swing in his Bazball-approved manner. Sri Lanka took the new ball as soon as it was available, which arguably backfired as Wood thumped the first two deliveries of Asitha’s comeback over through the off-side for four. Jayasuriya was then flat-batted through the covers for another four, before Wood launched Asitha high over midwicket for an exceptional one-handed catch from a spectator in the crowd, albeit with a bit of spillage from the pint in his other.
Asitha ended his fun in the same over, bowling Wood for 22 from 13 to land his fourth wicket of the innings, but Potts kept the crowd entertained with a cameo of his own, his 17 from 23 featuring one excellently picked-up ramp for four over the keeper’s head before he holed out to square leg.
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
Source: ESPN Crickinfo