Controversial ball-change helps England to exert dominance after stiff Sri Lanka resistance
Andrew Miller23-Aug-2024Sri Lanka 236 and 204 for 6 (Kamindu 56*, Chandimal 20*) lead England 358 (Smith 111, Brook 56, Asitha 4-102) by 82 runsFor 65 runs, spanning the best part of 50 overs and a wide range of England tactical switches, Angelo Mathews seemed to be playing from memory: his very best memory, in fact, from Sri Lanka’s triumphant Test tour in 2014, when his twin hundreds formed the backbone of a remarkable series win.By the close, however, Chris Woakes – armed with a lavishly swinging replacement ball, and in a scenario that Australians might recall with a grimace from last year’s Oval Test – had restored the dominance that Jamie Smith’s maiden century had set in motion in the morning session, as England edged ever closer to their fourth win in as many Tests this summer.The scenario at the close was stark. Sri Lanka led by 82 runs with four wickets remaining – one of them being the wicketkeeper, Dinesh Chandimal, whose last-ball thump for four off Shoaib Bashir was at least an indication that his right thumb was still in good working order, after he had been sent for a mid-innings X-ray on a gruesome blow to the thumb from Mark Wood. In a quirky reversal of fortune, it was Wood himself who didn’t make it through to the close – he aborted his run-up shortly before stumps after seemingly feeling a twinge in his right thigh, although Joe Root’s golden arm quickly lured Milan Rathnayake to his doom to land a bonus breakthrough as he briefly entered the attack to bowl the final four balls of Wood’s over.Those were just some of the subplots on a multi-faceted day at Emirates Old Trafford, which contained enough action to have dragged the game far deeper than just the third evening of the match, and for which one of the outstanding moments of the day was an indescribably cool catch by a beer-toting spectator at midwicket.But despite the dogged resistance of Mathews and Kamindu Mendis, who channelled his counterattacking instincts into a gritty 56 not out from 109 balls, the flaws in Sri Lanka’s performance – most notably in an abject 15 minutes of batting before lunch – were likely to be too stark to go unpunished. In that three-over period, immediately after England had added 99 runs to their overnight 259 for 6, they lost Nishan Madushka and Kusal Mendis for ducks to Woakes and Gus Atkinson respectively, to slump to 1 for 2, having been 6 for 3 first-time around.Kamindu Mendis passed 50 for the fourth time in four Tests•Getty Images
It was all a far cry from the competitive scenario that had seemed in prospect overnight, with England’s lead a slender 23 and most of their hopes of growing that advantage resting on the shoulders of their last – and most junior – recognised batter, Smith.After resuming on 72 not out, Smith was quickly into his stride against a Sri Lanka attack that lacked much of the intensity that they had brought to their endeavours in the first half of England’s innings, and when he crashed two boundaries through the covers in Asitha Fernando’s first over of the day, it seemed he might be in a hurry to notch his three figures.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 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 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 Rathnayake. At 24 days and 40 days, that made him the youngest England men’s keeper to reach a Test century.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. And when Smith fell for 111 to an excellent wide grab from Chandimal, standing up to a seaming delivery from Prabath Jayasuriya, Wood and Potts stepped into the breach in the Bazball-approved manner to blaze a further 43 runs for England’s final two wickets … which was 42 more than Sri Lanka would manage, moments later, for their first two.England did not imagine, however, that Sri Lanka’s middle order would be quite so generous with their wickets, and their approach after lunch was to go cross-seam – sacrificing the short-term threat of new-ball swing for the long-term gains of a scuffed-up ball and the prospect of reverse-swing. It enabled Dimuth Karunaratne and Mathews to settle into a composed 50-run stand that hinted at better times. But, inevitably, there was a speed-bump to come, and Wood duly delivered it.As has now become the summer’s norm, the crowd shuffled forward as one as Wood was thrown the ball for the 14th over of the innings, and he rewarded that anticipation with a first-ball exocet. Round the wicket, back of a length, it arrived in Karunaratne’s midriff so rapidly that he didn’t even know whether he had nicked it before it cannoned off his padding and through to Harry Brook in the cordon. Some choice words over the stump mic confirmed that he’d “hit the cover off it”, and sure enough Snicko confirmed an inside-edge.Chris Woakes broke Angelo Mathews’ resistance•PA Photos/Getty Images
Three overs later, Wood cranked up his pace for another body blow. Having already broken Kevin Sinclair’s wrist during the West Indies series, this time he twisted Chandimal’s right thumb clean off the bat handle with another vicious lifter. On came the physio, with Chandimal’s hand shaking with pain and his thumb swelling even as he underwent treatment, and it was a significant relief in the Sri Lanka camp when his subsequent hospital visit confirmed no break, rather the aggravation of an old injury.Potts then struck before the tea break as Dhananjaya de Silva missed a pull to be pinned lbw for 11, but when England re-emerged they quickly turned to a short-pitched approach, perhaps sensing that the life was going out of the 30-over-old ball. Kamindu signalled he was up for the challenge by sliding well inside the line to a Wood bouncer and levering him up and over fine leg for six, and as he and Mathews settled into their 78-run stand for the fifth wicket, Sri Lanka could dare to dream of a defendable total.All that changed in the 42nd over, however, when England’s lobbying for a ball-change finally proved successful. England’s frustrations had been mounting by that point – not least when an appeal for lbw against Kamindu became a no-ball on review, after Smith’s gloves were shown to have been encroaching onto the line of the batter’s stumps. But suddenly the new-old ball began to talk – it may well have been of a similar age to its predecessor, but the clear shine on its surface suggested it had not been treated anything like as roughly, and the challenge for Sri Lanka was transformed.Potts should have been the key beneficiary. Mathews, on 65, had not scored a run for ten deliveries when he chased a wide outswinger and was badly dropped at a lone slip by Root, and two balls later, Kamindu was similarly reprieved on 39, as Atkinson grassed a low cut at backward point.Woakes, however, ensured that Mathews’ let-off would be a temporary one, as he turned his quarry inside-out for a leading edge to point, before two subsequent lbw verdicts in Woakes’ favour were overturned on review after undetected inside-edges for Rathnayake and Kamindu respectively. The chances were suddenly coming thick and fast, and notwithstanding an unsettled weather forecast over the weekend, it seems unlikely that England will spurn four more of them before their fourth-innings target has been allowed to get out of hand.