Sam Curran felt England ended a difficult first day against Sri Lanka in a strong position after his late barrage of sixes shifted the momentum in the second Test.
Curran top-scored with 64 as the tourists made 285 all out in Kandy, clearing the ropes six times in a buccaneering last-wicket stand with support man James Anderson.
After teetering on 89 for four and opening up the tail at 171 for seven, a 60-run stand for the 10th wicket gave the final score a much-needed adrenaline shot and turned the pressure back on Sri Lanka. Jack Leach then picked off opener Kaushal Silva in a tricky period before stumps, leaving the hosts 26 for one heading into day two.
“Me and Jimmy had quite a bit of fun out there,” said Curran, a 20-year-old rookie who is fast building an envious collection of game-turning contributions on the big stage.
“It was crucial, getting close to 300 was massive for us. Jimmy was probably trying to calm me down, telling me to trust him.
“You’ve just got to back your ability, take the risks when you need to. Rooty (captain Joe Root) has been massive in the dressing room saying ‘don’t worry about making mistakes’ and we’re just trying to go out with a positive mindset.
“We’ve got a nice score on the board and it was a great positive for Leachy to bowl a beautiful ball the rid of their opener in the evening.”
While England’s score is not an imposing first-innings effort on the face of it, Curran is confident it is a healthy one given the state of the Pallekele pitch.
The ball began turning in the second over of the day and continued doing so for three sessions, with runs likely to get even harder to come by as the surface deteriorates.
Leach, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid stepped up to the challenge in Galle last week, sharing 16 of the 20 wickets to fall, and are itching to bag another bumper haul in friendly conditions.
“The next couple of days are going to be exciting for spin bowlers and batters are going to be on their toes,” predicted Curran.
“Spinners are going to have a huge role and we’ve got three great spinners all bowling very nicely. We have a score we’re fairly happy about with the surface breaking up and cracks getting a bit bigger.”
While Curran’s onslaught likely had the biggest obvious impact on Sri Lankan morale, with 10th-wicket hold-ups tending to have a disproportionately vexing quality to weary fielders, he pointed to Jos Buttler’s earlier contribution as equally important.
Newly-installed at number five, Buttler read both the situation and the surface deftly as he made a breezy 63 either side of lunch.
Fully 51 of his runs came from sweeps of one kind or another and he spent most of his innings stooping or bent on one knee with a cross-bat.
“Jos came in and played the way we know he can do: sweeping, reverse sweeping, running down…they looked like they started to panic a little bit,” said Curran.
“It got to the stage after lunch he was almost reverse sweeping or sweeping every ball, the field was all over the place.”
