Twitter Reactions: Dominant England complete formality to take a lead of 1-0 at Galle

It was a rather anticlimactic end to the first Test between England and Sri Lanka at Galle after Lasith Embuldeniya made early inroads towards the end of day four, to leave England in tatters at 14 for 3. However, it did not come down to any drama on the fifth morning as Jonny Bairstow and Dan Lawrence ended up guiding their team to a 7-wicket win to take an unassailable lead of 1-0 in the series.

There did not seem to be many demons on the fifth-day track and, whatever little did, the duo of Bairstow and Lawrence battled it with great gusto. Dan Lawrence survived a review off Perera as early as the opening over of the day after he attempted an unsuccessful reverse sweep to take a hit on his pads.

Desperate, and quite understandably, for wickets, Chandimal went to Embuldeniya to repeat his heroics from the previous day. However, the task was uphill for Sri Lanka to restrict England needing under 30 runs with 7 wickets in hands.

Lawrence-Bairstow guide England home

Much to Sri Lanka’s dismay, they missed out reviewing Lawrence, in what was the only opportunity for them to get a wicket in the morning. Bairstow and Lawrence eventually managed to see off everything en route to their unbeaten 62-run partnership and Bairstow’s sweep off Perera in the 25th over marked England’s famous victory, which is their second consecutive in Galle.

Though Sri Lanka can take much heart for the resilience and spirit in the second innings after the visitors skittled them out for a paltry 135 – the lowest score at Galle, they will need to admit that they lacked the character for the larger part of the game, with both bat and ball.

The story for Sri Lanka, as Dinesh Chandimal, the stand-in captain in the post-match said, “could have been different” had they managed 70-80 runs more for England to chase, but such realizations in hindsight will be of little help for the home side, who are due for the second Test at the same venue in 4 days.

For England, the fifers of Dom Bess and Jack Leach apart from Joe Root‘s spectacular double ton and a promising show from debutant Dan Lawrence will remain the highlights, they would be keener to win another to emulate their 2018 clean-sweep Sri Lanka.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: