Shanaka shatters England with triple strike

Lunch England 57 for 3 (Hales 38*, Vince 0*) v Sri LankaLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Alastair Cook’s bid to become the first England batsman to reach 10,000 Test runs had been relegated to an afterthought by lunch on the first morning of the first Test at Headingley, as the Sri Lanka debutant Dasun Shanaka claimed three wickets for one run in the space of eight balls to cut a swathe through England’s much-heralded top order.

By lunch, Cook had been dismissed for 16 – still 20 runs shy of his landmark – with Nick Compton and Joe Root, the local hero and newly-crowned England Test player of the year, both following for ducks in a sensational ten-minute spell before lunch.

It was left to Alex Hales, who had been growing in confidence on 38 after an anxious first hour, and England’s own debutant, James Vince, to glue the innings together. Vince had yet to get off the mark after 15 balls of watchful defence, as England settled for a lunchtime scoreline – and a definite bout of indigestion – of 57 for 3.

Shanaka, who was the last of the five bowlers used by Angelo Mathews on an attritional morning under overcast skies, had been brought on to bowl the 19th over of the innings, with England apparently looking solid on 44 for 0 after Cook and Hales, with a similar tempo but contrasting styles, had seen off the new-ball danger of Shaminda Eranga and Nuwan Pradeep.

Instead, having launched his Test career with a maiden, Shanaka struck with his seventh delivery to shatter any preconceptions that England might have harboured. Having …

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