On the third day in Manchester, after Jamie Smith’s maiden Test hundred had given England a commanding 122-run lead in the first innings, Sri Lanka looked likely to be defeated for good after Mark Wood sent Dinesh Chandimal to hospital for X-rays with a suspected fractured thumb.
The buzzball human cannon had already been struck with the first ball of the innings, and that blistering blow – an 89mph beast that rose from the ground at Old Trafford – had effectively put Sri Lanka at 74 for four, 48 runs short of putting England in to bat again. Ollie Pope, playing his first Test match as stand-in captain, was looking for the perfect start.
But at the other end was Angelo Mathews, the man whose 160 at Headingley helped secure a famous series win here a decade ago. After a scoreless first innings, the 37-year-old fought back brilliantly, scoring 78 with a lively Kamindu Mendis to take Sri Lanka to a four-wicket lead, with news that Chandimal only had a bruised thumb.
England were beginning to creak in the middle but Matthew Potts looked set to explode. Potts had earlier caught Dhananjaya de Silva LBW with a low, short ball to claim Sri Lanka’s fourth wicket, but he dropped two catches in the evening session, including a big one for 65, from Matthews.
It was an understandable cry for a bowler who had made his comeback in this Test match and who had been so out of form in the first innings that it took 21 overs for him to catch Pope’s eye. In the end, he had no choice but to show his team-mate the ropes, as Chris Woakes drew a leading edge off a weary Matthews and Potts held on safely at backward point.
Sri Lanka were leading by just 51 runs at the time but with Kamindu battling at the corner for 45, Chandimal made a brave return before the end. Kamindu, who like Matthews resisted Wood’s pace and pushed into the stands for six, had some good fortune along the way when he was dropped by Gus Atkinson for 39 and was run out lbw by Woakes in the closing stages but was saved by an inside edge.
After two days of gloomy weather and an overnight storm that caused some disruption to Manchester’s tram system, blue skies prevailed over Old Trafford in the morning and Sri Lanka had a chance to build on their characteristic resistance if they could take England’s final four wickets with ease.
But the rest of the game was frustrating for the touring team. A poor start, with confusion over who would bowl at which end (Ashita Fernando had finished the night) and a split-second delay in putting out the fielding pads, set the tone for Smith and co at the back, adding another 99 to their paltry 23-run lead from the previous night and, by lunch, the touring team were trailing by two runs.
The final match before the break again brought with it a sense of ending the three-day contest. Woakes smashed his third ball into Nishan Madushka’s off-stump and the opener shrugged off an outswinging ball that wasn’t outswinging. Continuing a promising start for England’s new-ball pair, Atkinson soon induced an edge from Kusal Mendis and Smith dived for a clean catch. Apart from a stomp mistake in the first innings and a rare no-ball against Kamindu where his gloves were confirmed to be in front of the stumps for an lbw decision, Smith here allayed any outside fears about his promotion to Test wicket-keeper despite not playing that role at Surrey.
The right-hander was always expected to step up his batting game and after a couple of sublime drives to build on his previous night’s 72, he had little trouble in a patient seventh-wicket stand with Atkinson (20) for 66.
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Then, an hour from time, Smith caught Milan Rathnayake for two runs, erasing the anguish of missing out on 95 at Edgbaston and becoming the youngest English wicketkeeper to score a Test hundred. At 24, three weeks younger than Les Ames in 1930, Smith is not one to get too carried away with milestone celebrations, but he certainly deserves to be the keeper.
Smith eventually fell trying to up the ante. Prabhas Jayasuriya’s third innings was a clever delivery but Potts and Wood built momentum. Wood hit three fours, one of them a stunning late over gully, and then a towering six into the Party Stand, where the crowd, beer in hand, were holding up a potential catch of the series.
As Chandimal will attest, Wood’s 22 off 13 balls was not the only damage he inflicted that day. But with veteran Mathews seemingly relishing playing against England, Sri Lanka were in no mood to succumb, even losing their sixth wicket late when Rathnayake holed out off Joe Root as Wood was finishing off the over he had started. England’s fast-bowling demon limped off gingerly after his run-up was cut short, and Root bowled the final four, beaming when Rathnayake whiffed on Ben Duckett.
