Careless England suffer first Test loss to Sri Lanka in 10 years

Sri Lanka beat England by eight wickets Sri Lanka stormed to their first men’s Test win over England in 10 years as Pathum Nissanka’s unbeaten century made Ollie Pope’s side pay for their lax second-innings batting display . The visitors started the fourth day at the Oval needing 125 runs with nine wickets in hand and ended it just over two hours later having only lost Kusal Mendis, caught well by Shoaib Bashir from a Gus Atkinson delivery. Read Next Moeen Ali was the most underrated England player of his generation Nissanka’s classy 127 from 124 balls made an example of England, who suffered a collapse of five for 26 on Sunday thanks to a slew of embarrassingly poor shots, only redeemed by Jamie Smith’s rapid-fire 67.

And despite his brilliant first-innings 154 , this will not reflect well on Pope’s stand-in captaincy ahead of Ben Stokes’ return for the upcoming tour of Pakistan. More to follow..



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