Defiant Mathews frustrates England even as defeat looms

durham, May 29 

England moved towards victory in the second Test against Sri Lanka whose batsmen showed sufficient resolve on Sunday to push the game into the fourth day even if the defeat still seems inevitable. Having been dismissed in the morning for 101 in their first innings to trail by 397 runs, Sri Lanka performed much better second time round to reach 309/5 by close, still 88 runs adrift at Durham. Captain Angelo Mathews led from the front with a combative 80, sharing a partnership of 82 with Kaushal Silva, who made 60. Dinesh Chandimal remained unbeaten on 54 at the close.

For Sri Lanka to even reach this far represents an improvement on the first Test, which they lost inside three days by an innings and 88 runs.

England's formidable attack took just 17 minutes to take the remaining first-innings wickets in the morning. The total represented another dismal Sri Lankan performance to set alongside their first Test efforts of 91 and 119 - it's the first time since 1958 that a Test team had been bowled out for under 120 in three consecutive innings. A different approach was required in the second innings and for once the batsmen did not disappoint.

A breezy 26 from Dimuth Karunaratne set the tone as, together with Silva, the openers put on 38 before Chris Woakes pushed a ball across the left-hander who edged a catch to Joe Root. Kusal Mendis picked up the pace with three boundaries in five balls from Jimmy Anderson but paid a heavy price when the Lancashire paceman responded with a full-length ball that was skied to keeper Jonny Bairstow. —Reuters

Brief scores: England: 498; Sri Lanka: 101 and 310/5 (A Mathews 80, JK Sliva 60, Chandimal 54*, Siriwardana 35*)