Batting first on a wicket which had so much for the spinners, the English top order struggled and kept loosing wickets at regular intervals. Rory Burns was the only batsman who showed some resistance in the top order and managed a score of 43 runs. The likes of Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Jennings couldn't make a decent enough score and fell prey to the Sri Lankan bowlers. After the failure of top order, Jos Buttler and Sam Curran put their hands up and scored 63 and 64 respectively. Buttler was more aggressive and scored these runs at a strike rate of 94 runs per 100 balls. Sam Curran has always helped England get out of the hole by scoring useful runs lower down the order and he did it again with a well made half century with England scoring 290 runs in their first innings.
The Lankan spinners were very impressive, especially Dilruwan Paerea who picked up 4 crucial wickets. Pushpakumara took 3 and Dhananjaya chipped away with 2 wickets. The spinners shared 9 wickets among themselves with the 10th going in favour of only pacer Suranga Lakmal.
Sri Lanka also started their innings on a bad note as they lost 2 quick wickets to Jack Leach and Moeen Ali. Kurunaratne and de Silva played cautiously and steadied the ship and put on a partnership of 96 runs before Karunaratne was run out by Stokes not before making a good individual score of 63 runs. The wickets started tumbling after the fall of Karunaratne and soon de Silva was also back in the pavilion after putting up a good knock of 59 runs. Roshen Silva was the saviour of Sri Lanka as he scored 85 runs and received good support form the likes of Niroshan Dickwella and Dhananjaya. Sri Lanka took the lead of 46 runs finishing their first innings on 336.
For England also, spinners took 9 wickets with Jack Leach and Adil Rashid taking 3 each and Moeen Ali taking a couple. The captain, Joe Root also bowled a few overs and took a wicket.
England came out to bat for just an over and Jack Leach negotiated it well.
We know Sri Lanka prepares spinner friendly tracks but I was expecting some assistance to the fast bowlers as well which wasn't to be. Only one wicket was taken by a seamer and that did really surprise me a lot.
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