Root and Atkinson put England in control – day one as it happened

Well, that’s it for today. Thank you for joining us, and of course, here is Mike Atherton’s full report from day one, covering Joe Root’s enduring class, England’s top-order puzzle and how Gus Atkinson and Jamie Smith have proved to be the finds of the summer.
That’s the end of day one. Atkinson (74) and Matthew Potts (20) have played well after Root’s dismissal for 143 to leave England on 358-7, with the pair both on their highest England scores with the bat.
Elizabeth Ammon writes: Jonny Bairstow has scored his first first-class century in over two years. He’s 107* off 130 balls at Headingley against Middlesex and trying to prove a point to the selectors. Although I am not sure it will make much difference.
It has finally happened: Joe Root is out. He falls seven runs short of 150 after being dismissed from a ramp shot. There were shades of Rajkot when he was dismissed in similar fashion. Nevertheless, a wonderful innings that has got England into a very good position having been in trouble. England now 308-7.
This has been a very handy partnership between Root (128*) and Atkinson (31*) which has added 62 runs turned England’s scorecard from worrying to pretty good. The number of times England have had to rely on Root to get them out of a hole though . . .
In the County Championship, Archie Vaughan made a very solid 30 from 55 balls for Somerset before falling to an LBW to Durham’s Daniel Hogg.
Elsewhere, Jacob Bethell, who was named in England’s T20 and ODI squads earlier this week, is playing for Warwickshire. He did not bowl, though, as it was the two veteran seamers in Oliver Hannon and Chris Rushworth who took three wickets each to bowl Kent out for 156 – they’re on their way back to Division Two.
After being on 99* for 12 balls, Joe Root has brought up his 33rd Test century, equalling the number scored by Sir Alastair Cook and putting him joint-tenth on the list of all-time Test century scorers. Sachin Tendulkar is at the top with 51.
This is Root’s sixth Test century at Lord’s which equals the record held by Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan. It’s quite interesting that all bar one scoring shot have been in the arc between cover and midwicket – only one shot down the ground. His century came with a dab through the slips to third man.
Lord’s stands as one to give an ovation to one of the very best England have ever had.
Moving on, Gus Atkinson has just played a glorious lofted drive down the ground for six. From that you can see why England have him batting higher than Olly Stone or Matthew Potts, both of whom are no mugs with the willow.
Chris Woakes has rather given his wicket away there. The nicest man in cricket has given Kumara another dismissal. It was a short ball which Woakes tried to hook but gets a top edge to fine leg where Asitha Fernando nearly makes a mess of it but holds on at the second attempt.
So that’s tea then and another decent session for Sri Lanka who have probed away with the ball and taken the wickets of Harry Brook and Jamie Smith – England added 103 in that session and mostly from the bat of super Joe Root.
It’s still a beautiful day at Lord’s – no rain forecast at all for the duration of this match which should mean play finishes between 6 and 6.30pm every day.
Meanwhile, Archie Vaughan is about to head to the crease at Taunton – Somerset have just lost their fifth wicket. He’ll be joining James Rew.
Farhan Ahmed – younger brother of Rehan – is also making his championship debut – he’s taken one of the only two Surrey wickets to fall today.
Smudgey Smith is out for 21. A big old edge behind – lovely bit of bowling by Rathnayake – wobble seam that moves away to take the edge. Smith’s second lowest score in his short Test career and there were only seven scoring shots in his 57 ball innings.
It really is all on Root now. England are 192-5 and in comes Woakes, who has a great record at Lord’s, averaging over 50 with the bat.
This is another Joe Root rescue job. How many times have we had to say that? He’s looking very fluent and Jamie Smith has just unfurled a nice drive after a watchful start to his innings. In other news, former prime minister Rishi Sunak is here in the ECB Chairman’s box with his security detail standing in their black suits and not very well hidden radios outside the room.
Death, taxes, and Joe Root dragging England into life. The former captain has just passed fifty following a drinks break and looks to have picked up from where he left off in the second Test – which is exactly what England need at the moment. It’s not been great entertainment, but the 33-year-old’s pragmatic innings so far has at least steadied the ship. That’s Root’s 65th half-century.
Well well. Sri Lanka firmly on top now as Brook is trapped in front by Asitha Fernando. The Yorkshireman reviews immediately but it’s umpire’s call clipping leg stump. He’s got to go for 33. He had looked in total control. It had been a steady start for England since returning from lunch, with Brook and Root attempting to regain control with the bat. Brook had even hit a few nice boundaries, too, spanking four fours. But he has gone, and Jamie Smith is the next man in. England’s longer than usual tail is in danger of being exposed early on day one. England are 130-4.
It’s lunchtime and that was not a wonderful morning for England. They are 97 for 3 after losing Dan Lawrence (9), Ollie Pope (1), and Ben Duckett (40), and they’re relying now on the Yorkshire duo of Joe Root and Harry Brook to try to repair things. Sri Lanka have bowled excellently, exploiting the movement off the pitch. It’s gone a bit hazy over Lord’s so overheads might come to play and make the ball swing a bit.
This is turning into an excellent first morning for the tourists. They’ve taken their third wicket as Ben Duckett, who had looked in decent nick, plays a very “Bazball” shot – reverse sweeping gets a top edge to deep backward point (or square leg as he reversed it). He wasn’t aiming it there and it’s Kumara is having a busy morning. 82-3.
Oh dear. England’s stand-in skipper is out for 1. Ollie Pope gets himself in an awful mess shaping to pull Asitha Fernando and can only pop the ball up to square leg. 42-2.
Meanwhile, Jordan Cox has left the England Men’s Test squad to join up with Essex in their Vitality County Championship Division One match against Worcestershire at Chelmsford. Josh Hull remains with the Test squad at Lord’s.
It took 34 minutes for Sri Lanka to get the first wicket and it was a change of bowling that got the breakthrough. Lahiru Kumara, who didn’t play in the first Test, bowled outside the off stump and Dan Lawrence goes for a checked drive but gets an edge to Kusal Mendis behind the stumps. Ollie Pope comes in. 33-1.
There are some tickets left at Lord’s for the first three days although only limited availability. There are, however, thousands available for Sunday if it gets to day four and you fancy a trip to St John’s Wood. Tickets for under-16’s are, I believe, only a tenner.
Archie Vaughan, son of the former England captain Michael, is making his County Championship debut for Somerset, who are second in Division One and searching for their first championship title.
The 18-year-old is a right-handed batsman, who also bowls off spin, and made his professional debut for Somerset in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup in July. Vaughan has now been included in the county’s squad that will play against Durham at Taunton, starting today.
Vaughan’s first-team debut did not go well — he was run out without facing a ball against Kent, although he did go on to bowl six tidy overs for only 16 runs. He fared much better as the group stage of the cup progressed, scoring 31 not out against Worcestershire and contributing with the ball as Somerset qualified for the final on September 22, when they will face Glamorgan at Trent Bridge.
● Read in full: Michael Vaughan’s son, Archie, to make County Championship debut
Sri Lanka have won the toss and decided to have a bowl first. It’s a gloriously sunny day so you might have expected them to have a bat but it’s going to be very hot at Lord’s this week and the pitch will dry out a lot. I expect they just don’t want to bat last.
Mike Atherton writes: For all athletes, whether great, good, average or somewhere in between, the realisation eventually arrives that the sporting world moves on. For Dawid Malan, the Yorkshire and England batsman, that came some time ago, having not been involved in one-day squads since the World Cup in India, but there is a finality to it now, with the announcement of his international retirement.
It has been a fine career — 22 Tests, 30 ODIs and 62 T20Is — full of striving and filled with success as well as a share of disappointment. He underperformed in Tests, exceeded expectations as a T20 player and was underutilised in 50-over cricket, the format at which he was most accomplished, because of the strength of England’s side under Eoin Morgan. He remains one of only two England men (Jos Buttler is the other) to have scored centuries in all three formats.
He looks back with an honesty now that comes from the detachment of knowing that part of his life is over. In the middle of it, desperate to succeed, things are not always so clear cut — if only we could all go back and have another go with everything we had learnt from experience. Malan, who turns 37 next week, is certain that he could have asked no more of himself, which is the best way to finish.
● Read in full: Dawid Malan interview
Elizabeth Ammon writes: Ollie Pope has admitted that the mental load of captaincy has had an impact on his batting and revealed that he sought the advice of Joe Root during the first Test against Sri Lanka.
Pope, who is filling in for the injured Ben Stokes, oversaw a five-wicket victory at Emirates Old Trafford to maintain England’s winning streak this summer but failed with the bat, scoring only 12 runs in two innings. In the second innings he got out to a failed reverse-sweep, which attracted some criticism.
“I really enjoyed the week. The runs didn’t translate for me, but hopefully the next two weeks I can put aside my captaining when it’s time to bat and focus on my batting,” Pope, 26, said, before admitting that he needed to work out how to compartmentalise the two roles.
● Read in full: Ollie Pope: England captaincy has taken a toll on my batting
Steve James writes: “I coach cricket teams to win,” the former England head coach Duncan Fletcher once wrote. “All the deep thinking about the game, all that planning, the meetings, the one-on-ones, the worry, the problems of dealing with the media, the inadvertent ignoring of my wife because my mind is wandering to how to get a certain batsman out in the next game; all that and much, much more is done for one sole reason — to win cricket matches.”
Now, Fletcher and the present head coach, Brendon McCullum, are very different characters (McCullum doesn’t seem to worry about very much at all) and therefore very different coaches. That may seem a very obvious ambition to state, but both these foreign coaches took over when England simply weren’t very good at winning Test matches.
Fletcher arrived in 1999 when England were bottom of what was then called the Wisden World Championship, below even Zimbabwe in the rankings of the then nine Test-match playing sides. McCullum entered when England had won only one Test in the previous 17.
● Read in full: McCullum’s England are emulating 2005 Ashes model
Here are the teams.
England XI: Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Ollie Pope (c), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Matthew Potts, Olly Stone, Shoaib Bashir.
Sri Lanka XI: Dimuth Karunaratne, Nishan Madushka, Pathum Nissanka, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Dhananjaya de Silva (c), Kamindu Mendis, Milan Rathnayake, Prabath Jayasuriya, Asitha Fernando, Lahiru Kumara.