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England strike with new ball after Bairstow century
- Updated: May 20, 2016
Tea Sri Lanka 43 for 3 (Chandimal 15*, Mathews 15*) trail England 298 (Bairstow 140, Hales 86) by 255 runsLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Jonny Bairstow added three catches behind the stumps to a brilliant counter-punching innings of 140, as England took command on the second afternoon of the first Test at Headingley. With a total of 298 to defend, Stuart Broad and James Anderson produced another classy display of seam and swing bowling to leave the Sri Lankans rattled on 43 for 3 at tea.
It was a situation far removed from the 83-for-5 scoreline that had confronted Bairstow when he walked out to bat shortly after lunch on the first day, as England finally assumed the dominant position that most observers had predicted for them before the start of the match.
And with the new ball jagging alarmingly from a full length as Broad and Anderson brought all of their huge experience to bear, it took a gutsy response from Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal, Sri Lanka’s most experienced pairing, to reach the break without further damage.
Faced with grey skies and a packed cordon, Sri Lanka’s openers, Dimuth Karunaratne and Kaushal Silva betrayed their anxieties in the very first over, when they hesitated so long over a quick single that they could have ended up shaking hands in the middle of the pitch.
Instead, they simply waved goodbye in the space of five deliveries as, first, Broad straightened one off the seam to kiss the edge of the left-handed Karunaratne, who departed for a 12-ball duck, before Anderson drew level with Kapil Dev on 434 career wickets by finding some extra lift to dispose of Silva for 11.
One over later, and Broad had two wickets in three balls as he went wide on the crease to spear an angled full-length ball into Kusal Mendis’ forward defence, for Bairstow to snaffle the slenderest of deflections behind the stumps.
Chandimal and Mathews, however, stood firm in a 31-run stand before the interval, as first Ben Stokes was repelled in a promising two-over burst of swing and bounce, before – less predictably – James Vince was thrown the ball for an exploratory over of medium-pace that had Chandimal hopping unnervingly, including a flying edge over the …
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