Lanka send England
spinning to defeat

Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya sent England spinning to a crushing defeat on the final afternoon of the first Test on Monday as the match ended in umpiring controversy.

The tourists, 217 behind after their first innings and resuming on 118 for two, lost by an innings and 28 runs as they collapsed to 189 all out.

Their last seven wickets went down for 44 and their last five for 13.

Sri Lanka had dominated the game after winning a vital toss on a pitch designed to turn from the first day and making an impressive 470 for five declared, with man-of-the-match Marvan Atapattu making 201 not out.

A string of decisions, however, went against Nasser Hussain's tourists throughout the game, with Michael Atherton and Craig White the main victims on the final day.

The opener departed, caught behind in the second over, without adding to his overnight score of 44.

Angling his bat, he edged to Kumar Sangakkara, the ball appearing to graze the ground as it disappeared into his gloves.

Atherton batted for four-and-a-quarter hours and England had hoped that he would form the mainstay of their rearguard action.

Crumbling pitch

White, England's last recognised batsman, was the eighth man to go, given out sweeping off the front foot against off-spinner Muralitharan.

The full toss seemed to strike the all-rounder outside the off stump.

Muralitharan, billed by his captain Jayasuriya as Sri Lanka's match-winner on the crumbling pitch, took four for 66 as he mopped up the tail.

But Jayasuriya, bowling left-arm spin, outdid him with four for 44 and eight wickets in the match.

England's hopes of salvaging the game were all but over by lunch, with Atherton, Graham Thorpe and Graeme Hick back in the pavilion.

Thorpe was trapped lbw on the back foot by off-spinner Kumar Dharmasena for 12 to make it 145 for four and Graeme Hick, after taking 27 balls to get off the mark, was then brilliantly caught for six off Jayasuriya's left-arm spin by Mahela Jayawardene at first slip.

Hick, handed a one-match suspended ban after showing dissent over his first-innings dismissal, could consider himself unlucky again as he edged a copybook delivery only for the ball to ricochet off the wicketkeeper's gloves to Jayawardene.

The only cheer for England came from Alec Stewart.

Unhappy with his first-innings dismissal, when he was given out lbw to a ball which appeared to pitch outside the leg stump, he responded by passing 7,000 test runs during his undefeated innings of 34.

Sri Lanka, however, were too powerful on a track ideally suited to their attack. It was their second consecutive innings victory at the ground after they beat South Africa at the Galle International stadium last year.

The two teams observed a two-minute silence before the start following the death of Sir Donald Bradman. They also wore black armbands.

The second of the three-Test series begins in Kandy on March 7.

Mail Cricket Editor