England win series
Published:Tuesday | June 21, 2011 | 12:00 AM
SOUTHAMPTON, England (AP):
England clinched a fifth straight series victory yesterday despite being held to a frustrating draw in the third Test against Sri Lanka, through a mixture of Kumar Sangakkara's brilliance and the return of heavy rain on the final day at the Rose Bowl.
Sangakkara (119) rediscovered his immaculate touch to strike a maiden century on English soil as the hosts, who resumed with a lead of 82 and with three top-order Sri Lankan wickets already in the bag, came up short. Rain wiped out the session after tea, with the tourists finishing on 334-5 with a lead of 141 runs.
Final scores: Sri Lanka 184 and 334-5; England 377-8 declared.
England, nonetheless, captured the series 1-0 and look to be in ideal shape going into the team's second series of the summer - against No.1-ranked India starting next month.
Momentum
"It continues our momentum from the winter and leads us up into the India series in good cheer, and in pretty good form,'' England captain Andrew Strauss said. "But there's maybe a tinge of disappointment that we weren't able to do more today because we felt we were in with a really good chance of winning the game.''
Sri Lanka lost just two wickets - nightwatchman Rangana Herath (36) and then Sangakkara - in those first two sessions and Thilan Samaraweera (87 not out) and Prasanna Jayawardene (6 not out) were left unbeaten. More than 150 overs were lost in the opening three days of a rain-disrupted test.
In the end, the Sri Lankans' dramatic second-innings collapse in the first Test in Cardiff - which lost them the match by an innings and 14 runs - proved to be the decisive episode of the series.
"That was probably the big-gest regret on this tour,'' said Sangakkara, who captained the team in the third Test in the absence of the injured Tillakaratne Dilshan. "None of us were switched on to that situation really.''
With the second Test drawn at Lord's, England needed to triumph in Southampton to climb to joint second place in the world rankings, level with South Africa.