England Turn Rain Drops Into Pressure

England's pace attack, which proved too good for Australia's batsmen on their own tracks, have again been all over the Sri Lankan's like a cheap suit. In a rain delayed, interrupted and then shortened first day of Test cricket for the Rose Bowl Ground at Southampton, Sri Lanka were reduced to 4-39 by Jimmy Anderson and Chris Tremlett. Anderson was superb, probing away at the already exposed weaknesses in the corridor which leads to the slips, his two wickets costing only one and a half runs an over. Tremlett, as he continues to do, extracted bounce from a length and had the Sri Lankan's constantly running to the back foot. Sometime team mate Steve Finn needs to take note of the lines and particularly the lengths Tremlett gains success with.

The reluctant stand in captain, Sangakkara, continued his poor run of form and will need to turn to cheap curry for the runs. The flashy swipe outside offstump, which was completely unnecessary, was the shot of a distracted man. For such a great player - less than 8 months ago he was the best batsman in the world - to be so badly out of form speaks of many things but it speaks loudest of how effective the English pace attack has become.

Mahela Jayawardene was undone by a corker from Tremlett which would have taken the best of the best.

Samaraweera and Prassana doubled the score before stumps but it looks to be a long way back in this Test, especially with Sri Lanka's bowling weakened and ineffective and so many of the English batsmen in form.

All of which is academic theory as the weather forecast is four heavy rain for the next three days followed by rain with sunny periods which may well save Sri Lanka further embarrassment on what has been a dismal tour.

The following series against India looks to be a juicy month of fixtures.