Tillakaratne Dilshan continued his mighty innings at Lord's to register a new career-best as Sri Lanka moved to a healthy 344 for 2 at lunch on the third day. Kumar Sangakkara was the one wicket to fall as Chris Tremlett struck with the second new ball, but Dilshan and Mahela Jayawardene confirmed Sri Lanka's control by attacking some woeful pace bowling.
Dilshan started the morning on 127 and took a few overs to play himself in before collecting his first boundary of the day through gully although England allowed him some easy release shots by having fielders on the rope. The imminent arrival of the new ball brought extra aggression from Dilshan as he took consecutive boundaries off Graeme Swann, reaching his 150 off 192 balls, then passed his previous best of 168, made against Bangladesh, with a pull off Stuart Broad.
He often kept England interested by flashing drives through backward point and gully but he never held anything back in his stroke play. By lunch he was closing in on Sri Lanka's best individual effort at Lord's - currently held by Sidath Wettimuny for his 190 in 1984 - and just the second double hundred by a visiting captain at the ground after Graeme Smith's 259.
Sangakkara, who has a poor record in England, had looked very focussed during the third-wicket stand of 81. He gloved an early boundary just wide of a diving Matt Prior but played nicely through the off side. However, in the first over with the second new ball Tremlett made one bounce and move away from short of a length, which Sangakkara committed to playing and edged to the keeper.
The new ball offered more encouragement for the bowlers, as did an increase in cloud cover, but too much inconsistency remained which had been England's problem throughout. Broad went for 25 runs in a three-over spell, including five boundaries, and it meant the occasional good delivery couldn't build pressure.
Steven Finn also continued to struggle during his two morning spells, offering up regular leg-side freebies to the batsmen as Sri Lanka cashed in, although he did cause Jayawardene a few problems in the last over of the session. An afternoon of similarly high scoring from the visitors and they won't be far off a lead by tea then the Test match will really have turned on its head.
