Joe Root helps England recover

Joe Root reached an unbeaten 67 to put England back on course after they lost their openers cheaply in the second Test against Sri Lanka on Saturday.

England finished on 98 for two at stumps on day two, still 283 runs behind Sri Lanka.

Lasith Embuldeniya, who took the new ball from the City End, accounted for both openers. Root joined Yorkshire teammate Jonny Bairstow with the side in trouble at five for two and counterattacked, adding an unfinished 93 runs for the third wicket.

Root, the English captain who posted a double hundred in the first Test, was unbeaten on 67 off 77 balls with 10 fours while Bairstow was on 24.

Root was the more dominant partner of the two England batsmen, using the sweep shot to good effect - both the conventional and reverse.

Sri Lanka know how crucial Root's wicket is and they unsuccessfully reviewed a leg before wicket shout with the batsman on 39.

Earlier, Sri Lanka did well to post 381 runs having batted for five sessions.

They lost centurion Angelo Mathews (110) and debutant Ramesh Mendis (0) in the first 15 minutes of the morning. But a determined Niroshan Dickwella scored a career-best 92 to help Sri Lanka recover.

Dickwella had been under pressure coming into this game after a string of low scores, but this effort should silence his critics.

Dickwella was involved in an 89-run stand with Dilruwan Perera for the seventh wicket and deserved a maiden hundred but crafty James Anderson dismissed him eight runs short of the milestone.

Anderson set up Dickwella having placed two extra-covers and a wide midoff and Dickwella took the bait, driving uppishly and was well caught by Jack Leach at wide mid-off. That gave the Lancastrian a five wicket haul - the 30th time he had done so in test match cricket.

Three balls later, Suranga Lakmal was caught at gully by Zak Crawley for no score to give Anderson his best figures in Asia.