CRICKET: England made light work of a dramatic late run chase to wrap up a 10-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the third and final Test at Old Trafford last night.
Two wickets in two balls from Ashley Giles (four for 62) set up a target of 50 runs from six overs in the Manchester gloom, Sri Lanka bowled out for 308 in their second innings despite Russel Arnold's 109.
The hosts, therefore, won the series 2-0 thanks to Giles as well as the performance of the new guard of their pace attack which was led by Alex Tudor in the absence of the injured Andrew Caddick and Darren Gough.
Tudor added three more wickets yesterday to finish with match figures of seven for 109 - a notable peformance on a wicket of undoubted pace but true bounce which favoured the batsmen.
Bad weather, which ate into playing time on each of the first four days, combined with Arnold's 211-ball ton looked sure to frustrate England.
But they stuck to their task to bowl out Sri Lanka despite determined rearguard batting from Aravinda de Silva (40) and Hashan Tillekeratne - and then openers Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick got them home with one over to spare at 7.35 p.m.
Arnold finished with 172 runs to his name in his first match as an opener for three years - but it was not quite enough for Sri Lanka to salvage some much-needed pride at the end of a most disappointing series for them.
England 1st Innings 512 (M. Butcher 123, A Stewart 123, M Trescothick 81; M Muralitharan 3-137, D Fernando 3-154) Sri Lanka 1st Innings 253 (R Arnold 62; A Tudor 4-65, M Hoggard 3-38)
SRI LANKA second Innings
(overnight 63-1)
R Arnold c Stewart b Tudor 109
S Jayasuriya b Hoggard 26
K Sangakkara lbw b Tudor 32
M Jayawardene c Hussain b Giles 28
A de Silva c Vaughan b Tudor 40
H Tillekeratne not out 32
C Vaas lbw b Hoggard 1
E Upashantha c Stewart b Flintoff 3
D Fernando lbw b Giles 4
M Atapattu lbw b Giles 6
M Muralitharan c sub b Giles 0
Extras (b9, lb9, w2, nb7) 27
Total (10wkts, 113.2 overs, 490 mins) ... 308
Fall of wickets: 1-44, 2-110, 3-170, 4-233, 5-263, 6-264, 7-270, 8-285, 9-308, 10-308
Bowling: Hoggard 37-8-97-2 (2nb, 1w); Flintoff 29-7-78-1 (4nb, 1w); Giles 24.2-4-62-4; Tudor 21-6-44-3 (1nb); Vaughan 2-0-9-0
ENGLAND second Innings
M. Trescothick not out 23
M. Vaughan not out 24
Extras (lb2, nb1) 3
Total (0wkts, 5 overs, 24 mins) ... 50
Bowling: Vaas 1-0-8-0; Fernando 2-0-23-0 (1nb); Muralitharan 2-0-17-0
Result: England win by 10 wkts Series: England win series 2-0.
