Delighted captain hails spirit of players as tourists prove their credentials after Cardiff humiliation

SRI LANKA captain Tillakaratne Dilshan was delighted his players managed to consign their Cardiff nightmare to the past as they closed in on England's first-innings score at Lord's, ending a rain-shortened day three 114 runs behind on 372 for three.

Heading into the second npower Test 1-0 down in the series after collapsing to 82 at the SWALEC Stadium, Sri Lanka showed no hangover as Dilshan led the way with 193.

He said: "We had to forget what happened at Cardiff, we had to come strong here and we had to do our job.

"As a captain I'm really happy that we batted really well after Cardiff where we got out in 25 overs. I'm really happy with the way the boys have batted."

Dilshan admitted he had been itching to join other Sri Lankan greats on the Lord's honours board.

"I said this Test match it might be my name would go on the board and it's happened," he said. "I'm really happy."

With the rain wiping out half the day's play, Sri Lanka's charge towards a first-innings lead was halted.

"If it didn't rain we might be past England's score, then we could get some runs in tomorrow," he said. "But we can still get a 100 or 150-run lead.

"It's a good challenge for us in these conditions against the taller boys. We're really enjoying batting in the middle."

Dilshan appeared to injure his thumb shortly before going off but he revealed it was nothing too serious.

"The thumb is okay," he said.

"There's no fracture. Last year I got a fracture on the same spot. Now it's bruises."

England bowling coach David Saker pointed to both the glow of Cardiff success, and the absence of injured pace spearhead James Anderson, as mitigating factors but not excuses for England's struggles with the ball.

He said: "When you have good days, you sometimes become lackadaisical. If you do that in this game, it has a habit of biting you on the bottom pretty quickly.

"It's more a subconscious thing - when you're bowling a side out for 80, you think it's just going to happen again.

"Cricketers and people in general sometimes take things for granted. I don't think we did that; I just thought our execution wasn't as good as it has been, and the opposition played very well."

Anderson said yesterday in his Sunday newspaper column that he expects to be fit again in time for the final Test at the Rose Bowl.

Saker added: "We've got a programme in place and hope he can get enough bowling in to be put up for selection. If he is there's no doubt he'll come back into our team.

"We're hoping to get him back, but I don't think we should be hiding behind Jimmy's absence here.

"We should be better than that. We set higher standards, and just to lose one player and bowl the way we did, I don't think that's excusable. The bowlers are disappointed, but it was good that in that last hour we showed some fight and came back.Steven Finn, in particular, showed some really good rhythm in that last hour - so we walked off the ground feeling a little bit buoyant. That last hour was more impressive, and probably more like what we have shown over those 12 to 18 months."

Even so, Saker acknowledges he and his charges have some hard work ahead to get back on their game.

"For the first time, I'd probably say there are some technical issues there," he said. "I've never seen this team bowl so many balls down the leg side, and Matty Prior had a hell of a hard job over the last two days wicketkeeping to that.

"That's usually a sign bowlers are falling over and not jumping straight enough through the crease.

"We might have to address those (issues).

"It could have been just put down to the Sri Lankans putting us under so much pressure early, and we probably didn't respond that well to it.

"What we usually have done is bowl well together. But we didn't seem to do that, and that's probably the most disappointing part."