England were forced to opt for the old hard grind rather than muscling the ball to all parts of the park in order to reign supreme in the Old Trafford Test in Manchester on Saturday, August 24.
Forced to go against their preferred nature of play, England had to rely on their most experienced batter Joe Root to take them over the line and the 33-year-old didn't disappoint.
Root revealed that it had become extremely hard to score on an abrasive Old Trafford wicket on day four and therefore the hosts had to change their method of play to cross the line.
"It was a tricky one today," Root said after the game. "It was a long, slow grind, but we got there in the end. The outfield is as long as I've seen for a long time in England, and the wicket itself obviously lost a lot of pace throughout. So it was quite hard to time the ball, and I didn't really feel comfortable trying to muscle it. It felt like that would bring the catchers in front of the bat into the game, so just had to accumulate in a slightly different way."
Chasing 205 to win, England were in a spot of bother after losing three wickets with just 70 runs on the board. The Sri Lankan bowlers had found their rhythm and Prabath Jayasuriya, in particular, was looking to make the most of the wear and tear on the surface.
But Root held one end firmly and stitched a 49-run stand with vice-captain Harry Brook for the fourth wicket and then added 64 runs for the fifth wicket alongside the young wicketkeeper-batter Jamie Smith to take England to the brink of an "ugly win".
The former captain showed a lot of maturity while batting alongside two of the most attacking players in the current English set-up as he chose to play supporting act.
"That's the beauty of partnerships," he said. "Someone like Brookie is always going to score freely, he hits the ball nice and firmly, and Jamie as well. He's obviously in great form, and a natural striker, so it's just nice to feed off each other.
"Hopefully it's a one-off thing. But sometimes it's good to win ugly. And we've still got a day (out of five) to go, so we're still sticking by the principles that we want to live by, and we're evolving as a team," Root said of England's circumspect approach on day four.
