England captain Ollie Pope returned to kind with an aesthetic unbeaten 103 to information his staff to 221-3 on a weather-affected first day of the third and closing take a look at towards Sri Lanka at The Oval on Friday.
Pope, below stress after a run of low scores, silenced his critics along with his seventh take a look at century after Ben Duckett compiled a fluent 86 in overcast situations to make Sri Lanka remorse their choice to bowl first.
England, who clinched the sequence with a complete victory at Lord’s final week, had been put into bat below gloomy skies and misplaced the early wicket of Dan Lawrence.
Lawrence, on 5, skied an bold pull off Lahiru Kumara and was caught by Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva, the opener trudging off disconsolately after one other failure on his return to the facet.
Duckett made mild of tough batting situations, nevertheless, to succeed in his half-century from 48 balls earlier than play was halted on account of dangerous mild.
The umpires led the gamers off the sector with England on 76-1 and it was almost three hours earlier than the match resumed.
Duckett continued to play positively, hitting an excellent six with a ramp off Kumara earlier than trying an identical shot off Milan Rathnayake and giving wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal a easy catch.
Pope signalled his intentions with an early six over backward sq. leg off Kumara and he was joined by Joe Root who made two centuries at Lord’s, however the former captain solely scored 13 earlier than he was caught at lengthy leg by Vishwa Fernando off Kumara.
Pope was not distracted, nevertheless, and the skipper drove Asitha Fernando sweetly to the duvet boundary to succeed in three figures, elevating his bat to all corners of the bottom as common captain Ben Stokes stood to applaud him on the staff balcony.
The umpires once more took the gamers off the sector because of the poor mild they usually by no means returned, leaving Pope and Harry Brook (eight not out) to renew on Saturday.Â