The Rattles Lords Usw

Sri Lanka's Tillakaratne Dilshan makes England toil at Lord's

As with politics, a week, even a few days, can be a long time in cricket. Triumph can be turned to disaster in a blink; the spectre of rain-washed defeat banished and replaced by glorious time in the sun. Five days ago, England's bowlers tore into the Sri Lanka batting with such verve and good fortune that they collapsed ignominiously to lose by an innings a Test they should have drawn in their sleep. How they responded in the second Test would be the litmus test of their resilience.

The answer was emphatic: in response to England's 486, the openers Tillakaratne Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana passed, without loss and inside 22 overs, the 82 that they collectively managed in Cardiff, en route to the highest opening partnership England have conceded anywhere since Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith put on 338 at Edgbaston eight years ago.

In the end it was Steve Finn, enduring an uncomfortable day generally, who made a breakthrough, as Paranavitana, a model of calculated restraint to that point and an admirable straight man to Dilshan's uninhibited flamboyance, flung his bat at a wide delivery and edged to first slip where Andrew Strauss clung on gratefully. For the four hours the stand took, England had seemed predestined to suffer Sri Lanka's humiliation in reverse. That was it for England, though. Sri Lanka will resume on 231 for one, with Dilshan on 127, his 12th Test hundred, and Kumar Sangakkara on 13.

Dilshan was irresistible. This is the fellow who has nurtured his reputation in the hothouse of one-day cricket, most recently his Colombo hundred helping hoof England to their 10-wicket World Cup exit. He is one of a breed of modern openers – others would be Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, and Tamim Iqbal, who made a run-a-ball hundred for Bangladesh on this ground little more than a year ago – who believe the new ball is best seen off not by entrenchment but by bouncing it off the boundary boards.

An hour before the close, two shots, one a back foot punch through the covers that HotSpot pinpointed as exploding from the dead centre of the blade's sweetspot, the other a rippling square cut off Finn, took him to his century, the sixth Sri Lankan to be enshrined on the visitors' dressing-room honours board. It had taken three-and-a-half hours and 129 deliveries, and there were 11 fours and two sixes, one a mistimed hook off Chris Tremlett that still soared over long leg and the other a wicked clump to the Allen Stand and wide long-on off Graeme Swann's offspin. For all his flirtation with fortune, his only blemish came on 80 when he edged Swann thinly, only for Matt Prior, who earlier had enjoyed his own batting celebrations, to fumble the chance.

Life in the Rattle and Hum

A few years ago a friend asked me what I thought was the best album ever made. For the record, there are not many questions that will engage me more quickly in a conversation, not only because it makes me feel like I’m a music expert (which is the next-best thing to being a rock-star) but also because everybody else will have a different answer. My initial response was the White Album