England spinner Dom Bess (centre) is congratulated by his teammates after capturing 5 SL wickets.

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Fast-bowler Stuart Broad and off-spinner Dom Bess made a mess of Sri Lanka’s (SL) batting on the opening day of the Moose Cup Daraz first Test at the Galle International Cricket Stadium by capturing eight wickets between them as they dismissed the hosts for 135 – the lowest total made by a team batting first at this venue. The previous lowest was also by SL – 181 against Pakistan in 2000.

Broad, who initiated the breakthrough in the seventh over with a double blow, had Lahiru Thirimanne caught at leg slip for four and two balls later the hapless Kusal Mendis edged behind for his fourth consecutive duck, ended with figures of 3 for 20 – his best effort on four tours to SL – the previous three producing three wickets for 249 runs.

Bess picked up his second five-for in an innings in his short Test career with 5 for 30, but although he was successful, it was his spin bowling partner Jack Leach who troubled the SL batsmen the most with his accuracy and variations.

SL squandered a good chance of winning the toss on a slow turning surface with a poor execution of stroke play that saw them dismissed in two sessions within 43.1 overs.

By stumps on day one England had batted themselves into a strong position, scoring 127/2, with Jonny Bairstow (47*) and Joe Root (66*) figuring in an unfinished partnership of 110 for the second wicket after emerging left-arm off-spinner Lasith Embuldeniya, opening the bowling, snaffled both openers Zak Crawley (9) and Dom Sibley (4) with the score on 17. England are in a strong position, trailing SL by only eight runs with eight wickets in hand.

Root, the more dominant partner in the stand, completed his 50th Test fifty in 98 Tests before the close, striking five fours in his 115-ball stay at the wicket, with Bairstow offering solid support with two fours from the 91 balls he faced.

The manner in which both batsmen played showed that there were no terrors on the pitch, but it was pathetic batting that led to Sri Lanka’s capitulation.   

Sri Lanka’s woes began before the toss when Captain Dimuth Karunaratne was ruled out of the Test with a hairline fracture which he had sustained in South Africa while batting in the second Test at Johannesburg. Sri Lanka had plans of gambling on playing Karunaratne despite the injury, but a brief batting session at the nets yesterday morning ruled him out as he found it uncomfortable. The captaincy passed onto Dinesh Chandimal, who called correctly and choose to bat first. But that was as far as they got, for the rest of the day belonged to the England bowlers who exploited the slow surface very well with a disciplined display of bowling, not offering many loose balls for the SL batsmen to score off.

That ploy eventually led to the downfall of Kusal Perera (20) and Wanindu Hasaranga (19), both falling to Bess while attempting the reverse sweep shot, and Niroshan Dickwella (12) who could have hit the long hop Bess offered to anywhere he wanted, but made a right-royal mess of it and lobbed a catch to backward point.

SL briefly recovered from losing their first three wickets for 25 in the first session through a stand of 56 between their two most experienced batters, Angelo Mathews and Chandimal, but their double dismissals within two balls of each other at 81 saw the rest of the innings take a nose dive.

Mathews (27) passed 6,000 runs in Tests, becoming the fifth Sri Lankan to do so, while Chandimal (28), dropped by debutant Dan Lawrence off Leach at 22, reached 4,000 Test runs during their brief stays at the wicket.

That it was not Sri Lanka’s day was clearly shown by the dismissals of Dasun Shanaka (23), when his powerful sweep shot, which in ordinary circumstances would have brought him a boundary, ricocheted off the boot of the short-leg fielder Jonny Bairstow and ended up in a simple catch to wicket-keeper Jos Buttler, and Embuldeniya was run out at the non-striker’s end backing up too far when bowler Leach got a fingertip to a drive from Hasaranga.

England players wore black armbands as a tribute to three former England Test cricketers who passed away recently – John Edrich, Robin Jackman and Don Smith.

Angelo Mathews and stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal during their half-century partnership.

England captain Joe Root celebrates his 50th Test half century.

“It’s the worst batting performance I’ve seen”: Batting coach Flower