OTD | Sri Lanka stunned England in very last over of the series to go 1-0 up in 2014

Sri Lanka pulled off the most dramatic of victories in their Test history to win their first Test series in England. An Asian team winning a Test match in England used to be certainly a rare sight those days. But on this day, a spirited Sri Lanka side, not only won a Test match against the mighty England side, but this victory further resulted in Sri Lanka winning the two-match Test series. After surviving by the thinnest margin in the first Test, the Sri Lankan side won the second match in a similarly close contest. 

After having won the toss, England skipper Alastair Cook chose to field first in the series decider. The decision of bowling first was eventually proven right as their seamers bundled out the Sri Lankan team for just 257 runs, courtesy of some brilliant swing bowling from Liam Plunkett, who ended with a figure of 5/64.

In reply, England had steadied the ship after losing their captain Cook early on in their innings and ended up scoring 365 runs in their first innings, securing a lead of 108 runs on the back of some useful contributions from Sam Robson (127), Gary Balance (74) and Ian Bell (64). After conceding an enormous lead of 108 runs in the first innings, Sri Lanka needed a big 2nd Innings total if they wanted to come into the game. 

The same was contemplated by the senior players who lived up to their reputation as the likes of Dimuth Karunaratne (45), Kumar Sangakkara (55), and Mahela Jayawardene (79) scored useful runs in the context of the game, but the cherry on the cake was the skipper Angelo Mathews, who really looked solid throughout the innings scoring 160 runs, which eventually helped Sri Lanka to score a gigantic 457 runs and ended up giving a huge total of 350 runs to win.

The target was huge considering the overcast condition and also the matter of fact that England were to bat out of their skins as they were to bat on Day 4 and Day 5. England were left reeling at the end of the fourth day’s play at 57/5, courtesy of some hostile bowling from Dhammika Prasad, who clean up the English top order. By the end of the fourth’s day of play, England team already knew that winning the game from there onwards was going to be a tough task and hence they focused on playing for a draw on Day 5. 

The approach from the beginning of Day 5 was very conservative, which eventually saw them getting bowled out for 249, despite of valiant batting effort from Moeen Ali, who carried his bat through the innings, scoring an unbeaten 108. But eventually, all went in vain as Sri Lanka scripted a historical 100-run victory to win their first multi-Test series on English soil.