By Sam Hathaway
June 17 2006

Tharanga's century helped Sri Lanka win an overly dominant performance against England at Lords today. The visitors posted 257-9 in their innings after being put into bat by England captain Andrew Strauss. Despite another convincing innings from Marcus Trescothick (67) and a positive start to his England career by Jamie Dalrymple(67, England made a slow start.
Sri Lanka batted first and for the first 10-15 overs England’s bowlers were struggling but the next 5 overs only conceded 18 runs so England were back on track.
The innings finished on 257-9 but England had improved their bowling as the game progressed.
Openers Andrew Strauss and Marcus Trescothick started slowly and eventually Strauss and then shortly after Bell got out and Pietersen was in. The score was 64-2 after 15 overs and Sri Lanka introduced the powerplay.
Pietersen flicked a ball to midwicket and was caught out from a stunning one handed catch by Jayawardene.
Despite the useful partnerships involving Dalrymple, England were behind the rate for the majority of their innings and were looking certain to lose.
England eventually lost the game by 20 runs but England shouldn't feel to disheartend as there was a certain lack of experience in the side with the England team's 401 total caps just passing Captain Sanath Jaysuriya's own 358, and way below the Sri Lankan team's total of 1658.