Sri Lanka vs England: Visitors ride on Bairstow’s ton to end on 312/7

Openers Rory Burns (14) and Keaton Jennings (13) were sent back early by Dilruwan Perera and Malinda Pushpakumara to give the Sri Lankans an early advantage on the day.

But Bairstow and skipper Joe Root got together to bring back England into the contest with a 100-run stand that evened the match. After Lakshan Sandakan claimed the wicket of Root by having him top edge a delivery right into Danushka Gunathilaka’s hands, the hosts sniffed a comeback into the match but once again, the script for went go according to their plan as this time, it was Ben Stokes who joined forces with Bairstow and added 99 runs before falling to Sandakan.

Just 19 runs later, the well-set Bairstow too made his way back to the pavilion after Sandakan had done him in with the ball crashing into the leg-stump to inject joy into the Sri Lankan camp.

Significant contributions from Moeen Ali (23*), Jos Buttler (16) and Ben Foakes (13) took them to 312/7 at the end of the day’s play.