England’s win at Lord’s provide WTC boost

England have 81 WTC points in their pocket     

Joe Root’s twin hundreds and Gus Atkinson’s inspirational all-round act helped England to a confident win over Sri Lanka in the second Test at Lord’s in London.  

With this victory, they have 81 World Test Championship (WTC) points in their pocket and have improved their WTC point percentage to 45. They remain in fourth place on the standings behind India, Australia and New Zealand.  

On the other hand, Sri Lanka’s loss has seen them drop point percentage from 40 to 33.33 percent and the Asian side are now behind South Africa and Bangladesh in seventh position.  

Atkinson’s heroics ensured England’s win on the fourth day itself. He scored 118 and 14 with the bat and picked up two for 40 and five for 62 with the ball. This made him the first Men’s player since Ravindra Jadeja in February 2024, to pick a five-for and score a hundred in the same Test.  

Atkinson is only the third England Men’s player to have achieved this feat in Tests. Ian Botham (who did it on five occasions), and Tony Greig (once) are the other two. Atkinson became the first England player to have done it since 1984.  

This was England’s fifth successive win at home in the ongoing season, a first in a single season since 2004 when Michael Vaughan’s side had gone undefeated with a 3-0 and 4-0 series win over New Zealand and West Indies respectively.  

They can cap off an unbeaten home summer by defeating Sri Lanka in the third and final Test at The Oval starting on Friday.  

This was also the first time Sri Lanka had lost a Test at Lord’s since 1991, ending a run of five successive drawn games at the venue.  

Joe Root had smashed his 34th Test ton in the second innings, breaking the England record and equalling the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Matthew Hayden, Younis Khan, and Mahela Jayawardene. 

(ICC)