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On a tumultuous second day that ended early due to poor lighting once more, Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis rebuilt Sri Lanka, but this time the tourists emerged victorious.
Sri Lanka fell to 93 for 5 as their bowlers produced an incredible comeback to dismiss England for 325 from their overnight 221 for 3, but Dhananjaya and Kamindu put together an unbroken partnership of 118 for the sixth wicket to reduce the margin.
During an exciting afternoon session, where Olly Stone grabbed two wickets and Woakes added another after Nissanka’s miscall and Stone’s straight hit from short cover had dismissed Dimuth Karunaratne, England effectively undid their opponents’ solid work.
Midway through his fourth over, Woakes was forced to bowl four offspin deliveries when the umpires deemed the light to be too poor for the seamers. It was a peculiar situation.
In the subsequent over, when the sky cleared and Gus Atkinson was able to dismiss his entire innings, Woakes also made a comeback, as in his sixth over, he had Kusal Mendis caught by Harry Brook at second slip.
Stone’s fourth delivery was a boundary when Ollie Pope caught Angelo Mathews at gully. Hull then removed Nissanka, and Stone pinned Dinesh Chandimal leg before wicket to put Sri Lanka in serious difficulty.
With the first of three exquisite drives in one Stone over, Kamindu raised Sri Lanka’s score to 100, and by tea, he was undefeated on 34.
England had to bowl spin for the entire evening session (17 overs), during which Dhananjaya and Kamindu scored 69 runs, due to poor light.
Aaqib Javed, Sri Lanka’s fast-bowling coach, had earlier asked his bowlers to “rest and come up with something better than this” at stumps on the opening night.
While England was vulnerable in their collapse of 6 for 35 in 56 balls due to poor shot selection and an unfortunate tendency to fall into the traps Sri Lanka’s bowlers set for them, there was no denying that the visitors’ performance had improved as their bowlers showed more patience and used probing lines to make the ball swing.
Pope increased his brilliant opening-day total of 103 not out to 154, but no England batsman other than Ben Duckett reached 20.