England captain Alastair Cook was to undergo a fitness test yesterday as rain delayed the scheduled 11am start of the fourth day’s play in the third Test against Sri Lanka at Lord’s.
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Bairstow has been in superb batting form since making 150 not out his maiden Test century, against South Africa in Cape Town in January.
With the pitch continuing to deteriorate and a more encouraging weather forecast for the final day, Cook’s men will remain hopeful of completing a series clean sweep.
Dimuth Karunaratne was 19 not out and Kaushal Silva 12 not out.
Silva, who made a stylish 79 in the first innings of this match, said: “I’ve missed out on a hundred at Lord’s three times, hopefully I’ll get another chance next time”.
“After the South Africa series people were calling for Alex Hales’ head”.
Rain meant there was no play before lunch on the fifth and final day of the third Test between England and Sri Lanka at Lord’s on Monday.
Cook will now have some time off but England’s white ball outfit take over the dressing room with Eoin Morgan’s ODI side and Sri Lanka set to face each other in five ODIs and a T20.
“I’m really pleased”, he added. “Being out of the side for a couple of years and going back learning about yourself, it’s never nice to get dropped, but that really spurred me on to try to get back in the side”.
Sri Lanka, undiplomatically, responded by hanging the national flag from the Lord’s balcony, which could either be regarded as a plucky statement that they would fight on regardless of their mounting ill luck or, conversely, as an infantile gesture carrying the implication of umpiring bias.
The flashpoint came in the 46 over of England’s second innings when Tucker wrongly called a wicket-taking delivery from Sri Lanka’s Nuwan Pradeep a no-ball and gave Alex Hales a life he didn’t deserve on 58.
“They ve got a very good (pace) attack, backed up with spinners”, Cook said of Pakistan.
England coach Trevor Bayliss paid tribute to Bairstow’s contribution.
That’s not a total Sri Lanka are likely to chase down but it’s certainly a smaller lead than might have been expected.
“I thought we might need a bit of power-hitting in the middle order so I put myself down there to show them how it is done!” he said.
The hosts were 109-4 overnight but had to wait until 14:40 BST to resume after rain wiped out the morning session.
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But two more downpours confirmed the inevitable draw shortly after 5pm, Sri Lanka having moved to 1-78 from 0-32 at the start of the day.
