Sri Lanka v England All Square

Jimmy Anderson made early strikes

After winning the toss and batting, Sri Lanka slumped for a third time in the three innings of this series, again losing three wickets in the early stages. Jimmy Anderson was the cause this time, removing Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara  with successive deliveries in his third over and both caught behind the stumps (Dilshan to Prior and Sangakkara to Strauss ... first slip but second chance!). Lahiru Thiramanne left a few overs later, padding up against all common sense, leaving Sri Lanka at 3-30 after nine overs.

England, reinstated Steve Finn for his first game since Lords in June last year when he took four first innings wickets against the same opposition. He replaced the injured Stuart Broad, who has already flown home. Monty Panesar was dropped in favour of Tim Bresnan, the seam up quick from Yorkshire, who played three Tests against a battered India late in the English summer of 2011 and returned 16 wickets. Never has a man's name been more fitting than Panesar's real first name ... Mudsuden. 14 wickets in two Tests of a losing cause against Pakistan, including 2 five wicket hauls and his name was mud suddenly after Galle ... a match lost by the failings of the batsmen and yet the same bunch have been picked again in Colombo.

Sri Lanka were forced to make two changes. Chanaka Welegedera couldn't recover from a groin strain and was replaced by Drammika Prasad and the fully fit Angelo Mathews replaced the unlucky Dinesh Chandimal, who batted well in both innings in Galle.

Jayawaredene gets his hundred

Again it was the evergreen skipper, Mahela Jayawardene who rescued Sri Lanka, aided and abetted by Thilan Samaraweera and Mathews. England bowled tightly, giving no free runs but Jayawardene and Samaraweera keep at the task and added 124 for the fourth wicket. Eventually, Samaraweera went to one of the oldest strategies in cricket: a series of short balls from Bresnan forced him onto the back foot and then a fuller inswinger trapped him in front. Mathews added 62 with Jayawardene, but his century achieved, Graeme Swann had him leg before to another questionable call by the DRS ball tracking system. Pitching off and just clipping the top of leg has to leave doubts in cricketers minds, even if they are bowlers. Jayawardene was superb in scoring his 31st Test hundred, leaving Matt Hayden in his wake. Only seven Test batsmen have scored more and none of them are Sri Lankan. He left in the over before the new ball was taken.

The first Test hero, Prasanna Jayawardene came and went quickly, caught behind as Finn steamed in with a new cherry. The pace trio of Anderson, Finn and Bresnan all bowled well, as did Samit Patel but it was Swann who was the questionable contributor. Again he was easily dominated and continued to look like England's weakness.

Much depends on the speed with which England can wrap up the innings. If Sri Lanka is able to eke out another 100 runs, England will face the same first innings total as Galle and with the same, failing batting line up. The Sri Lankans have just the man to guide the tail - Angelo Mathews. He has done such things before and can rely on support from Randiv, Herath and Lakmal.