Was it brave or foolhardy to insert England beneath clear blue skies at Lord’s? As Joe Root  peeled off his sixth Test hundred at the grand old ground, the verdict erred towards the latter. Gus Atkinson  added to Sri Lanka’s pain with a maiden Test half-century and, although the bowlers toiled manfully until late in the day to repay the faith shown in them by their captain, Dhananjaya de Silva, England had grappled their way into an increasingly sturdy positio

After Root, there was daylight on the England batting card – and Dhananjaya might rue the inability of Lahiru Kumara to persuade Paul Reiffel to raise his finger to an lbw appeal when Root was on 11, with the DRS returning a verdict of umpire’s call. The next-highest score was Atkinson’s unbeaten 76 from No. 8, with his 92-run stand alongside Root the chief reason that England did not have what looked a perfectly respectable batting rug pulled from under them.

Root’s 143 took him level with Alastair Cook on 33 Test centuries for England; during the course of his innings, he overtook Cook for most Test runs scored in England (and Wales) – and it is now surely only a matter of weeks, if not days, before he passes Cook’s overall mark for his country. Once the engraver has done his work, no one will have more entries on the batting honours board at Lord’s than Root, Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan.

Having steered England past the winning post at Old Trafford a few days ago, Root was again the batting bulwark for his side. As in the first Test, Sri Lanka bowled well to put England’s first innings in peril without quite finishing the job. England were 130 for 4 and then 216 for 6, only for Root to bolt together the two biggest partnerships of the innings alongside Atkinson and Jamie Smith. Atkinson and Matthew Potts then added an unbroken stand of exactly 50 as the shadows lengthened.

This was not quite a mid-2000s Lord’s shirt front but conditions remained placid throughout. Dhananjaya had reasoned that there is “always swing in the first hour” when opting to bowl but, while there was occasional lateral movement to deal with, few of England’s top order could claim that to have been genuinely got out.

Ollie Pope, in particular, departed in a manner that might have made for uncomfortable viewing back in the dressing room. Pope, England’s stand-in captain, had spoken before the game about separating his duties in leading the team from the processes required to bat at No. 3; perhaps he was wrongfooted by Dhananajaya’s decision at the toss, having been expecting to be told he was fielding, but the ungainly flap at Asitha Fernando suggested he still has plenty of work to do on that front.

England’s top three were all back in the hutch before lunch, and Asitha struck again after the break. Harry Brook produced a volley of attacking shots to put the hosts back on the front foot only for a marginal lbw call to this time go in Sri Lanka’s favour. Brook aimed an expansive drive at Asitha only to be defeated by a hint of seam movement back in, with Reiffel agreeing that it would have hit leg stump.

A stand of 62 between Root and Smith helped the Lord’s crowd settle into a more appropriate state of post-prandial relaxation. Smith was largely watchful, despite picking off the spinner Prabath Jayasuriya for three boundaries, before being caught behind with tea approaching as he aimed a more expansive drive at Milan Rathnayake.

Root had got off the mark with a four from his first ball but went about his business in typically unobtrusive fashion. Other than the Kumara lbw appeal, his one moment of genuine anxiety came when chopping Rathnayake just past off stump on 59; he edged the same bowler between slip and gully in the following over. The nerves were more evident in the crowd as he bided his time for 12 balls on 99, before opening the face to steer Kumara down to third, punching the air as soon as the ball had sped through the cordon.

Root eventually departed trying to reverse-ramp Rathnayake but, although the day ended with Atkinson and Potts taking liberties against the second new ball, this was a stuttering effort from England. The new-look opening pair for this series produced their third consecutive stand in the 30s, before Dan Lawrence edged tamely behind trying to walk down the pitch at Kumara. Ben Duckett looked assured in making 40 from 47 balls, only to reverse-swipe the fourth ball of spin in the match down the throat of deep point with 20 minutes to go until lunch.

Dhananjaya’s decision at the toss caused more than a few raised eyebrows around the ground as it basked in late August sunshine. When Duckett clipped three boundaries from Asitha’s second over of the morning, it seemed as if England were in the mood to ram home the point about Lord’s being a “look up, not down” ground. But Kumara, brought into the side for Vishwa Fernando, struck in his first over as Lawrence edged through to Nishan Madushka, deputising with the gloves after the blow to the hand sustained by Dinesh Chandimal in the first Test.

Pope’s average as Test captain then dipped from 6.00 to 4.33, as Asitha switched to the Nursery End and induced an ungainly pull across the line that took the top edge and ballooned to a gleeful Dhananjaya at square leg.

Sri Lanka, who have not lost a Test in London since 1991, had their tails up, with Asitha and Kumara probing for openings while Rathnayake kept things tight. Kumara was wholehearted, pushing the speed gun up towards 90mph, and he might have had another when bringing one down the slope into Root’s knee roll. The bowler bellowed an appeal, fully aware of the fine margins involved in umpire’s call: DRS duly had it clipping the top of leg stump, so Reiffel’s not-out stood. On such margins did the day turn.

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