Sri Lanka reeling on 80-5 at lunch on Day 1 of opening cricket test against England
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Sri Lanka was floundering on 80-5 at lunch on Day 1 of the first test against England, despite winning the toss Wednesday and choosing to bat on what appeared a good pitch.England’s seamers reduced the tourists to 6-3 after seven overs and then 40-4 under some clouds in Manchester. A rebuilding job by Dinesh Chandimal and captain Dhananjaya de Silva was ended just before lunch when a delivery by offspinner Shoaib Bashir barely bounced and trapped Chandimal lbw for 17.De Silva was unbeaten on 28 and in the middle with Kamindu Mendis (5).Chris Woakes had figures of 2-17 after removing Nishan Madushka (4) and Angelo Mathews (0) in the same over — a two-wicket maiden — to have Sri Lanka three batters down. Gus Atkinson took the first wicket when Dimuth Karunaratne (2) edged behind.Kusal Mendis (24) was the other batter dismissed after attempting to fend off a sharp, rising delivery from Mark Wood and looping it off his right thumb to second slip.England was coming off a 3-0 series win over West Indies and was without captain Ben Stokes because of a torn hamstring sustained in a domestic game this month. Ollie Pope was filling in as captain and Dan Lawrence was deputizing as opener for Zak Crawley, who broke a finger in the West Indies series.Pope said he would have chosen to bowl first if he had won the toss.Sri Lanka gave a debut to fast bowler Milan Rathnayake, chosen ahead of Kasun Rajitha and Lahiru Kumara, at the start of its first test series in England since 2016.___AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
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