Anderson strikes early for England

James Anderson
12 April 2012

James Anderson got the prize wicket of Mahela Jayawardene as England made a good start to the second day of the first Test at Cardiff.

Anderson's inswinging delivery proved too good for the former Sri Lanka skipper, with England captain Andrew Strauss taking the catch in the slips with the tourists on their overnight score of 133 for two in the third over of the day.

Opener Tharanga Paranavitana (66) then got an inside edge on a Chris Tremlett delivery to give England their fourth wicket, with Thilan Samaraweera unbeaten on 23 as Sri Lanka moved to 174 for four.

Anderson and Stuart Broad had opened with maidens before the Lancashire quick struck to remove Jayawardene, celebrating his 34th birthday today, for just four.

Anderson was able to find some swing early on and after pushing a couple of deliveries away from the right-hander he got one to come back in and find the edge, Strauss taking a very sharp chance at first slip.

With Samaraweera now at the crease, Paranavitana got the first runs of the day by taking two into the leg side off Broad.

But run-scoring opportunities were initially hard to come by with Anderson, who started the day with four consecutive maiden overs, looking particularly threatening as another wicked inswinger was just about dealt with by Samaraweera.

The new batsman eventually got off the mark from his 14th delivery faced with three off Broad into the backward point region, before driving Anderson through the covers for his first boundary.

Tremlett, who bowled well without reward yesterday, was introduced in place of Broad and saw Paranavitana edge just short of Matt Prior as England looked for the chance to get into a long Sri Lankan tail.

And Hampshire quick Tremlett was rewarded with his first wicket of the innings as Paranavitana's patient knock was ended with a full delivery that the opener attempted to drive but was undone by a lack of footwork and inside-edged onto his stumps.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in