ENGLAND recovered from the loss of early wickets to reach 342 for six wickets on day one of the second Test against Sri Lanka at Lord’s, England yesterday.
The hosts, so dominant in Cardiff just three days ago, were shell-shocked after being reduced to 22 for three after just forty minutes of play on what appeared to be a placid track.
But half-centuries from Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Eoin Morgan and Matt Prior got them back on course for a competitive score, and 177 runs were added in the final session alone as England wore down their visitors.
That said, given the tendency of Lord’s to produce high-scoring matches in recent years, left the match intriguingly-poised after the first day.
There were a few raised eyebrows when Tillakaratne Dilshan won the toss and elected to bowl first on a glorious day on a batsman-friendly wicket.
But it paid instant dividends as the tourists began to restore their confidence after the shocking Cardiff capitulation, as England’s batsmen were culpable in their own dismissals, and quickly left themselves in an awkward position.
Captain Andrew Strauss was the first to fall having scored just four runs, missing a straight ball from Chanaka Welegedara and continuing a quiet few months with the bat at Test level.
Jonathan Trott, a double-centurion last week, perished in similar fashion shortly afterwards, rapped on the pad by Suranga Lakmal. He reviewed the decision against him, but the replays showed that there was nothing saving the man voted England’s Player-of-the-Year earlier in the week.
Dilshan resisted the urge to deploy left-arm spin as soon as the out-of-form Kevin Pietersen arrived at the crease, but it mattered little as he soon played a loose drive against Lakmal and was caught by the Sri Lanka skipper at gully.
Having slipped to such a poor position it required plenty of hard work to dig England out of it, but the unflappable Cook and the in-form Bell set about it for the rest of the session.
Bell rode his luck, with Lakmal finding his outside edge on three occasions, but the Warwickshire man played with soft enough hands for his edges to drop repeatedly short of the slips.
For the rest of the innings he struck typically elegant boundaries and brought up his half-century after lunch, but departed shortly afterwards to end the fourth-wicket stand for 108 runs.
Cook, who had notched his 50 with a flurry of three boundaries as Dilhara Fernando tried the shorter ball, continued serenely, happy to take a back seat as his new batting partner Morgan began with some bustling hits including an enormous six over long-on against the spinner Rangana Herath.
It looked a certainty that Cook would notch an eighth Test ton since the start of 2010, but in the end he fell agonisingly short, top-edging Fernando into the obliging hands of Farveez Maharoof.
Morgan and Prior kept England’s recovery on track, with a series of crunching shots. A wilting Sri Lanka continually fed Prior a diet of wide deliveries which he gratefully drove and cut away to the off-side fence, while Morgan played several delightful strokes of his own as he arrowed in on a century.
The run-rate, a cautious three an over, moved up to four as Prior’s knock in particular upped the ante.
A perfect final session was spoiled when the new ball was taken and Lakmal struck with the first ball of his spell – a beauty of a fuller ball which trapped Morgan on a leg-stump line and was eventually given out on 79 after Sri Lanka reviewed Billy Doctrove’s original decision.
But Broad struck three fours as he and Prior added forty runs in just eight overs to carry the momentum into the second day today.

Scoreboard

ENGLAND 1st innings
A. Strauss     lbw b Welegedara     4                          

A. Cook     c Maharoof b Fernando     96                          

I. Trott     lbw b Lakmal     2                          

K. Pietersen     c Dilshan b Lakmal     2                          

I. Bell     c Paranavitana b Welegedara     52                          

E.G Morgan     lbw b Lakmal     79                          

M. Prior     not out     73                          

S. Broad     not out     17                          

Extras:    (b-3, lb-2, w-3, nb-9)    17                          

Total:    (6 wickets, 88 overs)    342         

Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-18, 3-22, 4-130, 5-201, 6-302.
Bowling: Welegedara 18-4-65-2 (nb-4, w-1), Lakmal 19-2-79-3 (w-1), Maharoof 17-5-57-0 (nb-5, w-1), Fernando 13-2-57-1, Herath 14-1-49-0, Dilshan 7-1-30.