What happened the last time England played Sri Lanka in a Test at Lord's?
The second Test between England and Sri Lanka is scheduled to take place at Lord's from August 29 onwards. The hosts currently lead the series 1-0, and will be keen to maintain their undefeated run in the home season.
Sri Lanka produced a decent fight in the series opener at Old Trafford, but need more potency to shake the England setup. The visitors have named a couple of changes to their playing XI from the first Test with Pathum Nissanka and Lahiru Kumara coming into the picture.
As far as England are concerned, they are without three of their sure-short starters in the form of skipper Ben Stokes, Zak Crawley, and Mark Wood. Vice-captian Ollie Pope has had to make some serious alterations to the combination, with Dan Lawrence opening the innings, and the likes of Matthew Potts and Olly Stone coming into the pace bowling attack.
Sri Lanka have played 19 Tests in England, dating back to 1984. They have visited Lord's more than any other venue, with eight visits to the iconic stadium, but do not have a single win to their name.
The last time Sri Lanka played at Lord's was during the third Test of their tour of England in 2016. On that note, let us take a look at what transpired during that contest.
England claimed a mammoth first-innings lead on the back of Jonny Bairstow's ton
England skipper Alastair Cook won the toss and opted to bat first. He led from the front scoring a patient 85 as the rest of the top-order crumbled. The hosts were reduced to 74/4, but were rescued by Jonny Bairstow.
The wicketkeeper-batter put on a crucial partnership with the skipper to repair the score, and then kept piling on the runs. He ended up with an unbeaten 167 run score, which remains his highest in Test cricket.
England were aided by Chris Woakes' handy fifty in the lower order, as it helped them stretch past the 400-run mark. The hosts were eventually bowled out for 416, with left-arm spinner Rangana Herath being the pick of the opposition bowlers with a four-fer.
Sri Lanka made a commanding start in their first innings as Dimuth Karunaratne and Kaushal Silva put on 109 runs for the opening wicket. The English bowlers came into the game soon enough, inducing a middle-order collapse to reduce Sri Lanka from 162/1 to 205/6.
Kusal Perera and Rangana Herath joined forces to reduce the deficit as much as possible, but the visitors could score only 288 runs with the four-pronged seam attack, sharing all the wickets among them.
The latter half of the contest was marred by rain as the match ended in a draw
England, having claimed a sizeable lead, were favorites to victory after ending Day 3 on 109/4. Two solid sessions of batting would have resulted in a lead beyond Sri Lanka's stretch, and the bowlers enough time to take 10 wickets.
However, rain came to Sri Lanka's rescue on the penultimate day as only 45 overs of play were possible. England added runs to their total to take their second innings score to 233/7, before declaring. Sri Lanka negotiated the remaining 12 overs in the day without losing a wicket.
The final day of the match saw only 12.1 overs of action being witnesses. With a target of 362 clearly being out of reach, they played out the little time and the contest eventually ended in a stalemate.
Jonny Bairstow was adjudged player of the match for his ton while England claimed the series 2-0 after narrowly missing out on a cleansweep.