Seventh ball the charm for Anderson

The wide call against James Anderson off what would have been the final ball of his second over was borderline, but it proved perfect for England. With the seventh delivery, Anderson nipped one back off the seam to take Tillakaratne Dilshan's inside edge through to Jos Buttler. The man who had held Sri Lanka together in Durham was out early.

Forecasts are to be taken with a pinch of salt, but the one for Manchester on Wednesday looked bad enough to presume chances of play would be slim. It rained heavily overnight and into the morning and the covers were still on shortly before the 1.30pm scheduled toss time. But a few moments later it was confirmed play would begin only 20 minutes late - a credit to the Old Trafford drainage and groundstaff. It still required a multiple layers, a thermos and, for the players, some hand-warmers but at least there was a game to watch.

"Be more aggressive," has been the call to Alastair Cook from various quarters. Well, here he had an opportunity to show he does have it in him to seize the moment. Sri Lanka were three down and Dinesh Chandimal was walking to the crease. Immediately, Cook signalled for a helmet for a short leg and by the time Chandimal took guard there were also three slips poised. With the ball zipping around and Sri Lanka in trouble it was not the most taxing decision for Cook, but it was still encouraging to see.

England's fielding has been inconsistent to say the least of late. Catches have gone down and run outs missed. When Anderson missed the chance to run out Mahela Jayawardene it revived the notion that England do not hit the stumps very often, although it is one of cricket's weaknesses that readily available statistics on such incidents are not easily available. Anyhow, later in the innings Ravi Bopara showed that it can be done when he swooped from mid-on and hit the one-and-a-half stumps he had to aim at to find Ashan Priyanjan comfortably short.