ENG vs SL 2nd Test Day 1 Highlights 8-29-2024

Watch cricket video highlights of Sri Lanka of England 2024. Second test between England vs Sri Lanka. Venue of the match will be Lord’s.

Was it a bold or a foolish move to introduce England at Lord’s under bright blue skies? The decision leant more in favor of the latter as Joe Root ripped off his sixth Test century at the historic stadium. Gus Atkinson compounded Sri Lanka’s suffering with his first Test half-century, and while the bowlers worked tirelessly till the end of the day to earn back their skipper Dhananjaya de Silva’s trust in them, England had struggled their way into a more and more solid position.

There was light on the England batting card after Root, and Dhananjaya may be kicking himself for not being able to get Paul Reiffel to wave an LBW appeal when Root was on 11, with the DRS reversing an umpire’s ruling. Atkinson’s flawless knock of 74 at number eight was the next highest, and it was mostly due to his 92-run partnership with Root that England was unable to pull off what appeared to be a perfectly fine batting performance.

Root’s innings saw him surpass Cook for the most Test runs scored in England (and Wales) with 143. It will now likely just be a matter of weeks, if not days, until he surpasses Cook’s record for his nation. Root and Alastair Cook have 33 Test hundreds between them. No one will have more entries on the Lord’s batting honours board than Michael Vaughan, Graham Gooch, and Root once the engraver has completed his job. Root was his team’s batting rock once more after leading England beyond the winning post at Old Trafford a few days prior.

Similar to the previous Test, Sri Lanka bowled brilliantly to threaten England’s opening stand but fell short of the mark. After England was 130 for 4 and then 216 for 6, Root and Atkinson and Jamie Smith quickly put together the two largest partnerships of the innings. Then, as the shadows became longer, Atkinson and Matthew Potts constructed an uninterrupted stand of precisely fifty. It was not exactly a Lord’s shirtfront from the mid-2000s, but the atmosphere was calm the entire time.

Although Dhananjaya had reasoned that there is “always swing in the first hour” when choosing to bowl, few of England’s top order could honestly claim to have been taken out, even if there was occasionally lateral movement to contend with. Particularly Ollie Pope left in a way that probably would have made for unpleasant seeing from the dressing room. The stand-in captain for England, Pope, had discussed prior to the match how his leadership responsibilities and the requirements of batting at No. 3 should be kept separate.

It’s possible that Dhananajaya’s decision at the toss caught him off guard because he was expecting to be told he was fielding, but the awkward move at Asitha Fernando indicated he still has a lot of work to do in that regard. Before lunch, all three of England’s leading scorers were back in the hutch, and Asitha hit one more following the interval. Harry Brook launched a barrage of aggressive strokes to give the hosts back in the lead, but Sri Lanka won this time due to a close LBW call.

A hint of seam movement back in foiled Brook’s wide drive toward Asitha, and Reiffel concurred that it would have struck leg stump. A 62-run stand between Root and Smith allowed the Lord’s supporters to decelerate into a more fitting state of after-meal leisure. Even though he dismissed the spinner Prabath Jayasuriya for three boundaries, Smith was generally cautious. However, as tea was getting ready, he was taken off guard and attempted a longer shot towards Milan Rathnayake.

Root started out well, hitting a four off his opening ball, but he carried on with his usual understated demeanor. His one real moment of fear, other from the Kumara lbw appeal, occurred when he chopped Rathnayake barely beyond off stump on 59; he edged the same bowler between slip and gully in the next over. As he waited for 12 balls on 99, the crowd’s worries were more apparent. He then opened his face to guide Kumara to third, pounding the air as soon as the ball broke over the cordon.

When the day finished with Atkinson and Potts collecting wickets against the second new ball, Root ultimately went out trying to reverse-ramp Rathnayake, but this was a faltering effort from England. This series’ new opening tandem put on their third straight stand in the 30s, but Dan Lawrence was tamely surpassed as he attempted to stroll down the pitch at Kumara. With twenty minutes remaining until lunch, Ben Duckett seemed confident after making forty from forty-seven balls, only to reverse-swipe the match’s fourth ball of spin down the throat of deep point.

In the late August sunshine, Dhananjaya’s choice at the toss raised more than a few heads around the pitch. It appeared as though England wanted to emphasize that Lord’s is a “look up, not down” field when Duckett removed three boundaries from Asitha’s second over of the morning. However, after Dinesh Chandimal’s hand was injured in the first Test, Kumara, who was added to the team in place of Vishwa Fernando, struck in his opening over as Lawrence edged through to Nishan Madushka, filling in for him with the gloves.

Asitha changed to the Nursery End and produced an awkward pull across the line that took the top edge and exploded to a jubilant Dhananjaya at square leg, causing Pope’s average as Test captain to plummet from 6.00 to 4.33. Having won every Test match in London since 1991, Sri Lanka was firing on all cylinders as Rathnayake kept things tight and Asitha and Kumara looked for opportunities. Pushing the speed gun up to ninety-nine mph, Kumara was all in. He may have had another when he brought one down the slope into Root’s knee roll.

Aware of the narrow margins in the umpire’s decision, the bowler yelled an appeal. The DRS correctly determined that the ball had clipped the top of the leg stump, therefore Reiffel’s not-out was upheld. And thus the day turned on such edges.

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