England had the sort of day yesterday that they had been dreading. Another toss lost condemned them to a day in the field under a sun that, once morning clouds had been dispersed, beat down on them like a hammer on an anvil.

When Andy Caddick, with the second new ball in its fifth over, had completed the final over of the day, and the team trooped gratefully to the cool sanctuary of the dressing-room, a glance at the scoreboard showed Sri Lanka at 221 for two and pretty much in control.

The two wickets were both ripsnorting catches by Craig White. The first, early off Darren Gough, was that of the captain Sanath Jayasuriya, taken in the gully just when he had begun to set out his wares.

The only other came midway through the afternoon when the left-hander Kumar Sangakkara, having made a cultured half-century, let ambition get the better of him and leathered Robert Croft from down the pitch on the up straight at White at short extracover. It ended a second-wicket partnership of 92 that promised many more.

But Marvan Atapattu batted the entire day for 85, an effort of supreme, near-faultless concentration and self-denial that brought forth appreciative applause from Mike Atherton, England's own opener, with whom he shares not just initials but a similar appetite for crease occupation.

The second wicket brought in Aravinda de Silva, not just restored to the side but back to his rightful place as centrepiece of the batting. He had made 56 of the unbroken third-wicket stand of 111 in three hours, hoicking Croft over midwicket for six and hitting six fours besides, the last of which, in the day's final over, brought sneering applause from Caddick, who had given away nothing all day but made no allowance for De Silva's 18 Test hundreds.

The heat and humidity were of such intensity that by tea, when the bowlers were weighed for monitoring purposes, they had lost 4kg (almost 9lb) each, which equates to four litres of water.