Moeen’s 155* leads England’s charge

Tea Sri Lanka 32 for 1 trail England 498 for 9 dec (Moeen 155*, Hales 83, Root 50, Pradeep 4-107) by 466 runsLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A batting promotion worked wonders for Moeen Ali as he scored his second Test century, and the fourth-highest score by an England No. 7, to build an imposing total of 498 for 9 before Alastair Cook declared before tea on the second day Chester-le-Street. James Anderson then made an early breakthrough to leave Sri Lanka 32 for 1 and with a huge task ahead to salvage something from the match.

Moeen, whose previous century came in his second Test, against Sri Lanka at Headingley in 2014, dominated the scoring although received good support from the lower order, adding 92 for the seventh wicket with Chris Woakes and 98 for the last two wickets combined. He reached three figures from 109 balls with a lofted drive down the ground (a similar stroke had brought him his half-century). His next fifty took just another 43 deliveries, as he cut loose with Steven Finn and Anderson for company, with the 150 being raised with a crunching six over deep midwicket off Suranga Lakmal.

After Cook called an end to the batting merriment 40 minutes before tea, Anderson then removed Dimuth Karunaratne in the third over of Sri Lanka’s reply when the left hander moved too far across his stumps. For a moment he stood perplexed leading to the unusual sight of the umpire raising his finger to confirmed a bowled dismissal.

England resumed in 310 for 6, talking positively of 450 but probably willing to accept 400 – in the end they plundered 188 runs …

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