Manchester: Sri Lanka was floundering on 80-5 at lunch on Day 1 of the first test against England, despite winning the toss Wednesday and choosing to bat on what appeared a good pitch.
England’s seamers reduced the tourists to 6-3 after seven overs and then 40-4 under some clouds in Manchester. A rebuilding job by Dinesh Chandimal and captain Dhananjaya de Silva was ended just before lunch when a delivery by offspinner Shoaib Bashir barely bounced and trapped Chandimal lbw for 17.
De Silva was unbeaten on 28 and in the middle with Kamindu Mendis (5).
Chris Woakes had figures of 2-17 after removing Nishan Madushka (4) and Angelo Mathews (0) in the same over — a two-wicket maiden — to have Sri Lanka three batters down. Gus Atkinson took the first wicket when Dimuth Karunaratne (2) edged behind.
Kusal Mendis (24) was the other batter dismissed after attempting to fend off a sharp, rising delivery from Mark Wood and looping it off his right thumb to second slip.
England was coming off a 3-0 series win over West Indies and was without captain Ben Stokes because of a torn hamstring sustained in a domestic game this month. Ollie Pope was filling in as captain and Dan Lawrence was deputizing as opener for Zak Crawley, who broke a finger in the West Indies series.
Pope said he would have chosen to bowl first if he had won the toss.
Sri Lanka gave a debut to fast bowler Milan Rathnayake, chosen ahead of Kasun Rajitha and Lahiru Kumara, at the start of its first test series in England since 2016.
