Joe Root steers nervy England to victory in first Test against Sri Lanka

The stage was set for another dose of so-called Bazball, England set a target of 205 to win the first Test against Sri Lanka with 66 overs left in the fourth day; the kind of run chase they have looked to utterly vaporise these past two and a half years.

What followed was anything but a cruise, rather a cagey, tense affair as Sri Lanka, buoyed by a sublime 113 from Kamindu Mendis earlier in the piece, pushed their hosts all the way.

England won by five wickets at 7.17pm – a first victory for their stand-in captain, Ollie Pope – but only after Jamie Smith, centurion in the first innings, had stepped on the accelerator with a flurry of late boundaries.

Smith perished for 39 with 22 runs still to whittle off, castled by a wonderful reverse-swinging yorker from the ever-willing Asitha Fernando and welcomed back into the dressing room with the gratitude of his teammates. But the reassuring presence of Joe Root was at the other end, his unbeaten 62 from 128 taking England home with a heaved straight four.

This gripping slow burn of a run chase – the target reeled in after 57.2 overs – said a fair bit about the fight shown by Dhananjaya de Silva’s Sri Lanka, this second set of summer tourists already an upgrade on West Indies by way of experience. It also said something about England’s new outlook.

It is a time of renewal for their seam attack post-Jimmy Anderson, but the batters are also under orders from Ben Stokes, looking on here, to bring a bit more nuance to their play; to remain positive but give a bit more respect to the match situation. Once they slipped to 70 for three, this called for bloody-mindedness.

At that stage, as Dan Lawrence missed a straight one from Milan Rathnayake to be trapped lbw for 36, England had been ticking along at a familiar four-and-a-half runs per over. Ben Duckett had been nicked off early by Asitha Fernando, while Pope had perished for six by toe-ending a reverse sweep off Prabath Jayasuriya to slip. But with Sri Lanka’s sweepers once again out early, singles were readily available.

Then came the squeeze from the tourists, the wily Jayasuriya wheeling away from the Brian Statham End – the surface not assisting much but his nous still evident – and De Silva rotating his seamers from the other. Harry Brook, instinctively an aggressor, took his lead from Root, digging in for 32 runs in a precious fourth-wicket stand of 64.

Jayasuriya broke the pair’s gimlet-eyed resistance, teasing a sharp caught and bowled from Brook after beating him in the flight. There were 86 runs to get at this stage. But Smith, glowing in form from the masterful 111 in the first innings that proved the difference, allayed any concerns among his teammates about tee-off times on Sunday with another display of youthful bravura.

Root was simply happy in his bunker, surviving a couple of close shouts for lbw and waiting 95 balls to strike his first boundary. His second was the coup de grace, dancing down the track to Jayasuriya and sending him back over his head.

That England were pushed so hard owed so much to Mendis, a player who shot to online prominence during the 2016 Under-19 World Cup with his ambidextrous spin bowling. He is primarily a batter, however, and this third Test century in his first seven innings took his average to 92; an opportunity very much taken with both hands.

Had Gus Atkinson’s hands not let him down on the third evening Mendis would have departed for 39. But it was an otherwise classy knock, all compact drives and hustle as he and Dinesh Chandimal pushed Sri Lanka to 291 for six at lunch – a lead of 169 – and the much-discussed changed ball from the day before went quiet.

Pope was also shorn of Mark Wood, off with the thigh injury that has put the rest of his series in doubt, while his spinner, Shoaib Bashir, was getting little help from the rock-hand surface. It took the arrival of the second new ball after the break to separate the set pair, Atkinson switching to around the wicket – not his preferred angle of attack just yet – and finding the edge of Mendis’s bat.

An end opened up and Sri Lanka’s slightly callow tail exposed, Chandimal looked to up the ante but after Jayasuriya and Vishwa made way in meek fashion the injured man was last to fall for 79. Oh, for just a bit of support, he must have felt.