Sri Lanka's class gives England a real lesson

Sri Lanka had all but lost the first Test at Lord's at the start of the fourth day. With some more stodgy batting and helpful weather, they now have a sliver of a chance to save it. Here's what the papers had to say about England's slip-up.

On Saturday morning, England were going to win the first Test by Saturday evening. Yesterday morning, they were going to win it by teatime. Today, they will need luck with the weather if they are to win it at all, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins in The Times.

Mahela Jayawardene denied England resolutely during his 14th Test century. David Hopps writes in The Guardian that this was a hundred to stir hopes that the Sri Lankan captaincy might finally bring fulfilment to a Test career that has never quite scaled its expected heights.

Monty Panesar has bowled just 21 overs in the match but he's given the crowd far more to cheer about than the two Sri Lankan wickets he's taken. But Lawrence Booth warns that Panesar will have to spruce up his act to avoid several earfuls in Australia.

Shortly after lunch yesterday Farveez Maharoof drove Liam Plunkett through mid-off for four. The ball skipped off the rope and over the boundary board, but for the spectators the fun had only just begun. Enter Monty Panesar stage right and with all the enthusiasm in the world. Haring across from mid-on to collect the ball, he leapt over the hoardings and can have been little more than an inch or two from catching his boot and falling flat on his face. The crowd duly erupted as if he had just won Olympic gold in the 110m hurdles.

Nightwatchmen are not supposed to hook fast bowlers into the stands for six, writes David Llewellyn in The Independent . Yet that is just what Farveez Maharoof did to Liam Plunkett to bring up his 50.

Geraint Jones may have received several barbs for his sometimes shoddy glovework but lo and behold, he's the quickest English wicketkeeper to reach 100 dismissals. Lawrence Booth says while the statistics can be deceptive, they are also irrefutable.

Rick Broadbent says in The Times that it was England's clumsiness in the field that cost them dearly.

The image of Matthew Hoggard spreadeagled across the lush springtime turf and clutching the ball with which he had taken his 200th Test match wicket entirely reflected the man, writes Mark Nicholas in The Telegraph. Hoggard is a scrummager not a three-quarter, more farm hand than high-faluter.