Harry Brook and Jamie Smith, batting together for the first of many times in Test cricket, have ticked their stand past fifty, with Sri Lanka’s first-day total less than the same away. Brook has barely looked like missing a ball all day, and Prabath Jayasuriya has barely turned one. And then it happens. The slow left-armer pitches leg, hits off, and Brook can only stand there, mouth agape, before walking off with the only consolation being that at least he had done little wrong. And then, an hour or so later, he does it again, a near-identical jaffa seeing off Chris Woakes.

Each is a special ball, and in combination it makes for a special passage of play. Jayasuriya reaped the rewards for the optimism of continuing to rip every ball rather than take a bit off and ensure the accuracy, and for the skill too to ensure that the two that did grip landed in the prime spot to be a danger. A fraction in either direction and it’s kicked away or beats the bails. A fraction less action and it’s deadbatted away. With Fernandos Asitha and Vishwa having probed for four wickets earlier in the day, the game is, if not in the balance, then certainly not decided.

A day and a half can be a long time in Test cricket, but it’s not so long ago the prospect of Sri Lanka competing at all seemed remote. The new ball left them 6-3, but it was the next two wickets, after a stroke-punctuated counterpunch, that felt particularly cruel. Mark Wood found some extra lift at 93mph to contort Kusal Mendis, a ball so unplayable that even as Joe Root attempted to shadow-play it during a drinks break, he had no answer. Then Shoaib Bashir got one to scuttle along the ground, looking partially embarrassed rather than properly celebrating. England had also got some of their wickets from out of blue, particularly in the first session.

Even facing an imaginary Mark Wood is scary business 🤣#BBCCricket #ENGvSL pic.twitter.com/BRbMCh69yk

— Test Match Special (@bbctms) August 21, 2024

As Sri Lanka stumbled on that first morning, the pre-ordained narrative was set into motion. Here in front of us, it seemed, Test cricket was dying. England would win every Test in a home summer for the first time in 20 years, and everyone would shrug their shoulders. And all the while, a game of very live cricket burned in the background.

That’s not to say that those fears for Test cricket’s present and future are ill-founded. That Sri Lanka have been able to compete is not justification for their lack of preparation, but all the more reason to deride it. Somehow, even as finances diverge, as the franchise circuit pulls the most talented away, as the ever-spiralling schedule ensures teams arrive undercooked and are then offered up to be filleted, competitive, entertaining Test matches still threaten to break out. What might this game look like if Sri Lanka had had another practice hit behind them? From being skittled for 139 by makeshift Lions side, they now resemble a bonafide Test team. And after the shock of that first morning, they have settled their nerves and thrown a few punches back.

It’s important not to be patronising - these are professionals, and deserve to be recognised as the best their nations can offer. There’s clearly bundles of talent. Jayasuriya has already equalled Vernon Philander as the fastest to 50 Test wickets since the 1800s. Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal all have experience of winning a Test series in England. Dhananjaya de Silva, another key component of the fightback, averages more than 40 in Test cricket. Kusal Mendis is capable of the sublime, and while Kamindu is just starting out, he can bowl spin with both arms, and averaged north of 100 in his three Tests, all in Asia, before this series. The makings are there of a team to live up to the glories of Sangakkara, Jayawardene and Murali.

But it’s also impossible not to marvel at the chutzpah of putting on a show in the face of the obstacles, of ignoring the odds and summoning something on the grand stage. It shouldn’t be possible for a jobbing seamer, 28 years young, to stride out at No.9 on debut and stroke his highest first-class score, as Milan Rathnayake did here, or for a journeyman middle-order bat, the other side of 30 in age and the same in first-class average, to face down the fastest spell ever bowled in England while fearing for his wife and kids back home and compile a century, as Kavem Hodge did at Trent Bridge. Hodge and Alick Athanaze put on nearly 200 in that game as West Indies nicked a first-innings lead. Each hails from Dominica, an island with a population roughly the size of St. Albans. Somehow you doubt two of Hertfordshire’s finest could have put on a similar display.

For all Jayasuirya’s guile and skill, Fernando’s sizzle and swing, Rathnayake’s humpty and heart, England ended the second day ahead. They will likely win this game, and will remain heavy favourites for the next two. But Sri Lanka’s efforts have injected intrigue into the series, and shown the joy that could still be salvaged from the Test game.

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