England 342 (Foakes 107, Dilruwan 5-75) and 322 for 6 (Jennings 146*) lead Sri Lanka 203 (Mathews 52, Moeen 4-66) by 461 runs
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Keaton Jennings moved to 146, Jos Buttler and Ben Foakes made handy contributions, and England surged to a lead of 461 before captain Joe Root eventually declared the second innings closed at 322 for 6.
Sri Lanka will now have to bat out seven overs before stumps on the third day, and are faced with the gargantuan task of seeing out two more full days – weather permitting – in order to avoid going down 1-0 in the Test series. The highest target ever successfully chased at Galle is 99. No team has faced more than 114 overs. A Sri Lanka win, for now, is almost unthinkable – the highest successful chase in any Test anywhere, is 419.
Jennings, who had gone to tea on 98, reached triple figures in the third over of the session, turning a ball behind square on the leg-side to bring up the milestone. Though he has struggled at home, this was his second hundred in three games in Asia, the first having come in Mumbai on debut in 2016. Having earlier struck up a century stand – the first of the match – with Ben Stokes, he put on 77 for the sixth wicket with Buttler, and 61 for the seventh with Foakes.
The retiring Rangana Herath took the wicket of Buttler, thanks in part to an outstanding catch at short leg by Kusal Mendis. He walked off the field for the final time as a bowler with a tally of 433 wickets, which places him eighth equal on the all time list.
England 342 (Foakes 107, Dilruwan 5-75) and 212 for 4 (Jennings 98*, Buttler 14*) lead Sri Lanka 203 (Mathews 52, Moeen 4-66) by 351 runs
England’s steady advance to an unassailable position continued after lunch, as Keaton Jennings went to tea two runs out from a Test hundred, with Ben Stokes also having struck a confident fifty, before being bowled by Dilruwan Perera. Losing only one wicket in the afternoon session, England sit on a gargantuan lead of 351, with six wickets in hand, and plenty of batsmen to come. Though the pitch is taking significant turn, only the occasional ball is jiving alarmingly.
Generally, all the regular shots against spin remain relatively safe: the cut, the nudge down the ground, the back-foot punch, and the flick. Jennings has favoured the reverse sweep, as he had done during his Test hundred on debut, in 2016. Sri Lanka attempted to curb that stroke via various means, initially putting a man deep, then pulling him into the circle to try and tempt a mistake, and later even briefly posting a gully, in addition to a slip, to try and block off that area. Jennings continued to reverse-sweep despite this, while also rocking back into his back foot to find easy runs in the arc between point and mid on. More than 70 percent of his runs, including each of his six boundaries, have come on the off side.
He had had a serious reprieve towards the end of the first session, when on 58 he was struck in front of the stumps by Dhananjaya de Silva – the umpire turning down the appeal, and Sri Lanka subsequently failing to review. But otherwise, he has been relatively secure in defence, resolutely keeping out the balls threatening the pads and the stumps, and ensuring that when deliveries spun past his outside edge – which many did – he did not cast out in panic the defensive strategy that was working for him.
Stokes was the primary aggressor during the pair’s 107-run stand – the first century partnership of the match – hitting four fours and three sixes in his 93-ball 62. Unlike Jennings, he found empty spaces on the leg side, particularly after Sri Lanka’s offspinners began to go round the wicket to target the rough. Two of his big hits – all off spinners – came down the ground, and one over wide long-on. He had just begun to raise the tempo, hitting 31 runs off 20 balls, before Dilruwan Perera got a ball to rip out of the rough, and take his off stump, beating a forward push from Stokes. That wicket brought Jos Buttler to the crease – he also made a mighty strike down the ground for six, as he moved to 14 not out off 30 deliveries before tea.
Dilruwan has been Sri Lanka’s best bowler in this Test, particularly against the four left-hand batsmen in the top five, and he claimed one of the three wickets in the first session, having Moeen Ali mishit a lofted stroke to Rangana Herath at mid one. Herath struck once in the first session, too, removing Joe Root for the second time in the match. The other wicket to fall before lunch – that of Rory Burns – came via a run-out. Burns punched a ball to mid-on and took off, only to have Dimuth Karunaratne swoop on the ball and throw down the stumps to find him half a metre short.
Be the first to comment