England victory bid held up by rain at Lord’s

Dimuth Karunaratne (37 not out) and Kusal Mendis (17 not out) played positively and kept hitting the odd boundaries.

“It’s brilliant for him to become man of the series and it’s great for us to have an attacking batsman who is similar to Matt Prior”.

The first would have been to make incursions into Sri Lanka’s second innings to prepare a route to victory and a 3-0 clean sweep in the series; the second, a maiden Test hundred for Alex Hales.

England’s declaration on 233-7 had left all results possible and the likelihood of an intriguing culmination to a series already wrapped up by Cook’s team with wide-margin successes at Headingley and then Chester-le-Street.

An understanding Hales said: “Of course I sympathise with them and Rod”. “The squad in South Africa did really well”, he said.

But with two points on offer for a win in each of the six white-ball fixtures-five ODIs and a lone Twenty20-Sri Lanka can still win the multi-format Super Series.

I haven’t seen him for a couple of years but the guy can bowl quickly.

That’s not a total Sri Lanka are likely to chase down but it’s certainly a smaller lead than might have been expected.

Silva, who made a stylish 79 in the first innings of this match, said: “I’ve missed out on a hundred at Lord’s three times, hopefully I’ll get another chance next time”. But they both fell for their overnight scores as Sri Lanka collapsed in overcast conditions that made batting harder than had been the case on Friday.

Karunaratne was 19 not out and Silva unbeaten on 12.

Sri Lanka were 32 without loss, needing a further 330 runs to reach their victory target of 362, at stumps on the fourth day of the third Test against England at Lord’s on Sunday.

England captain, Alastair Cook, faces a fitness test to determine whether he will bat again in the Third test after being struck on the knee while fielding.

The final session was a stop start, with rain playing the spoilsport.

But the weather relented for play to resume after tea.

An early lunch was announced to be taken at 12.30pm – with the Lord’s square under full cover, puddles being mopped up and rain still falling at noon.

England’s first innings 416 was built around Yorkshire wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow’s Test-best 167 not out and 85 from Cook.

Sri Lanka (2nd innings)D. Karunaratne not out 19K. Silva not out 12
Extras (lb1) 01
Total (no wicket) 32
To bat: K Mendis, L Thirimanne, A Mathews, D Chandimal, K Perera, R Herath, S Eranga, S Lakmal, N Pradeep
Bowling: Broad 5-2-15-0; Anderson 4-1-5-0; Woakes 2-1-7-0; Ali 1-0-4-0.