By Rex Clementine in London
Sri Lanka’s batting woes have hurt them in this tour of England and they suffered a 190 run loss in the second Test at Lord’s to hand the series to England with a game to spare.
Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva surprised everyone when he put England in despite conditions being sunny and good for batting and they were playing catch up from that point on.
Joe Root made hundreds in each innings and tail-ender Gus Atkinson joined him posting a maiden First Class hundred as Sri Lanka gave away the initiative after reducing England to 216 for six.
Atkinson had a good game picking up seven wickets and was named Man of the Match.
The only highlight for Sri Lanka was Asitha Fernando picking up five wickets to become the first Sri Lankan after Rumesh Ratnayake to put his name on the Honours’ Board.
It was an embarrassing loss for Sri Lanka. This is their first defeat at Lord’s in 33 years. They had drawn the last five Tests at Lord’s and in 2002 even made England follow on.
“Our batsmen were struggling and we thought we should do something different. But that didn’t work out. Pretty disappointed,” captain Dhananjaya de Silva said explaining why he put the opposition in after winning the toss.
“I told in the last game as well that we need to do well in the first innings whether we bat or bowl. A minimum of 320 is a must in the first innings. Batters need to focus and play long innings in order for us to do well.”
Sri Lanka came into the Test series after just one warm-up game and Dhananjaya felt that one more practice match would have been ideal ahead of the Tests.
“It is better when you play a few more games. The more time you spend out in the middle in England the better prepared you are. We have not done that and we paid the price.”