England complete stunning win

England v Sri Lanka, 1st Test, Cardiff 

Sri Lanka 400 & 82   England 496/5 dec

England win by an innings and 14 runs

ENGLAND pulled off an unlikely victory on the final day of the first Test bowling out Sri Lanka for 82 in a remarkable afternoon of Test cricket.

Superb bowling from Chris Tremlett, Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad helped the hosts to an incredible and dramatic win – one that certainly was not expected at lunch time when it the game seemed destined for a draw as once again bad weather intervened.

As per normal for this Test, rain washed out the morning session and the first part of the afternoon’s which meant the chances of the match ending in a result were very low indeed.

Play started with England’s Ian Bell completing a lovely century – starting again from his overnight score of 98 not out. As soon as the Warwickshire man reached three figures, Andrew Strauss declared to give Sri Lanka an uncomfortable few hours in the crease.

But on a breezy afternoon, Sri Lanka were blown away in their second innings by England’s bowlers and were dismissed for their fourth ever lowest innings total in Test cricket.

The away side were put under pressure straight away when Tremlett got the wicket of inform openers Tharanga Paranavitana (0) and skipper Tillakaratna Dilshan (10).

Then after tea things were to get much worse for the tourists when Tremlett got the priceless wicket of Mahela Jayawardene (15) before Swann collected the wickets of Thilan Samaraweera (0), Kumar Sangakkara (14) and all-rounder Farheez Maharoof (0) to leave Sri Lanka in disarray.

Broad soon afterwards bounced out the tail to rubber stamp a fine victory for the home side which sees them take a 1 – 0 series lead with still two Tests to play.

Whether Sri Lanka can recover from this setback only time will tell but this certainly is not the start Dilshan would have wanted as skipper. His team does not have long to recover with the second Test at Lords starting on Friday (June 3).