Jamie Smith's maiden Test hundred on day three of the Old Trafford Test has allowed England to have their noses in front of Sri Lanka. Day three began with a 66-run stand for the sixth wicket between Smith and bowling allrounder Gus Atkinson.
The partnership broke the morale of the tourists as they were looking for early breakthroughs. Smith looked composed during his knock of 111 off 148 balls and struck eight fours and a maximum.
Debutant Milan Rathnayake brought Sri Lanka back into the contest with the wicket of Atkinson. Atkinson's dismissal also broke the concentration of Smith who perished after becoming the youngest wicketkeeper-batter for England to score a Test century.
Smith fell when England's score was 315 and the visitors should have mopped the rest of the English tail in a jiffy but it was not meant to be.
Mark Wood (22 off 13 deliveries) and Matthew Potts (17 off 23 balls) acted as a real pain for Sri Lanka. They joined hands in the middle and stitched a 33-run stand for the ninth wicket.
England's innings concluded with a score of 358 on the board and it allowed them to register a 122-run lead. Asitha Fernando was the pick of all the Sri Lanka bowlers. Asitha bagged a four-for after conceding 103 runs in 18 overs. He was well supported by Prabath Jayasuriya who claimed a three-wicket haul and managed to extract enough turn from the surface towards the fag end of England's innings.
In reply, Sri Lanka got off to the worst possible start as they lost both Nishan Madushka and Kusal Mendis with just a solitary run on the board. Former captain Dimuth Karunaratne (27 runs off 32 balls) and skipper Dhananjaya de Silva (11 runs off 25 balls) tried to steady the ship but perished soon.
But just when it seemed that Sri Lanka's batting order was about to collapse veteran allrounder Angelo Mathews and budding allrounder Kamindu Mendis got together and rescued Sri Lanka's sinking ship.
The pair of Mathews and Kamindu added 78 runs for the fifth wicket and allowed the visitors to take a lead of 82 runs. Chris Woakes dismissed Mathews at an individual score of 65 to bring England back into the contest. Sri Lanka still have Kamindu at the crease and there are four more wickets left in their kitty.
