That was enough time for James Anderson to see off Kaushal Silva lbw with a brilliant inswinger up the slope, as Sri Lanka moved to 45 for one.
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Rain headlined the final day but a Sri Lanka protest at a wrongly called no-ball from the previous day was the main highlight.
Sri Lanka finished on 32-0, so the home side need all 10 wickets from 98 overs to claim a whitewash, but two men will still be ruing what happened on a rain-affected day four.
Having been injured when he was hit on the knee at short leg, England captain Alastair Cook had not come out to bat on Saturday, and he emerged at number seven when nightwatchman Steven Finn was dismissed in the fifth over of the day.
Bairstow’s Test-best 167 not out and 85 from Cook were the major contributions to England’s first innings 416.
While Test specialist Cook prepares for Pakistan, wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow will be looking to take his red-ball form into the intervening five one-day internationals against Sri Lanka.
Understandable complaints that global umpires were ignoring repeated no-balls so that they could concentrate on events at the business end of the pitch seem to have caused a recent reassessment of that approach, but Tucker’s no-ball call for such a borderline delivery – a wrong call as it turned out – will not allay concerns.
A especially unusual escape on 58 for Hales, thanks to an errant no-ball call by umpire Rod Tucker, brought a sideshow of minor controversy. Sri Lanka on the other hand have the hard but not entirely impossible assignment of making 330 runs on Day 5 to win it (they’re now at $76 odds to do so).
England have named the uncapped Tymal Mills, Dawid Malan and Liam Dawson in a 13-man squad for their upcoming Twenty20 global against Sri Lanka.
Flags traditionally fly above both dressing rooms at Lord’s and the flag on the balcony was eventually removed at the request of Marylebone Cricket Club, the owners of Lord’s.
It is a mark to say we are not happy with the decision, to show solidarity and fight back. “The flag is a symbol”. We scored a lot of runs against a very good Australia attack past year and I think it is going to be a brilliant series. “If they feel it’s only happening to us, that’s sad”.
England were frustrated after only 12.2 overs were possible between the downpours at headquarters, and they were therefore robbed of a chance to bowl Sri Lanka out.
There is no option with an umpire’s mistake to go back, the captain is helpless, the team is helpless.
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Ford called for all no-ball decisions to be taken by the third umpire.
