England vs Sri Lanka: Jonny Bairstow makes 150 before dropping sitter in Sri Lanka reply

Visitors reach stumps on 162 for 1 in reply to home side's 416 after wicketkeeper error

“Everyone drops catches. It’s the nature of cricket, the way things go.” So said Jonny Bairstow, in the afterglow of his unbeaten century on Thursday night, referring to Shaminda Eranga’s shocking spill that had given him a life in the infancy of his knock.

Well, they certainly do and Bairstow himself, the star of the England innings with his undefeated 167 out of his side’s 416, was at it on the second day of the third Test here at Lord’s as Sri Lanka fought back to reach stumps at 162 for 1.

The England wicketkeeper is seeing the ball like a melon with bat in hand but like a pea as soon as the gloves are donned and he shelled a sitter from Chris Woakes’ first delivery of the Sri Lanka reply in mid-afternoon when Dimuth Karunaratne nicked one. It was as easy as they come. Eranga may even have taken it.

Karunaratne was on 28 and made 50 before in the evening session Steven Finn strangled him down the leg-side, Bairstow this time pouching the ball. The keeper punished Eranga to the tune of 156 runs so 22 is small change but would a Misbah-ul-Haq or a Virat Kohli be so obliging?

Bairstow has form, too, which is perhaps why he got irritable ahead of the Durham Test last month when he was asked if he was happy keeping wicket. He went on to have a messy time behind the pegs and not for the first time. At Centurion against South Africa over the winter he dropped Hashim Amla on 5 (he made 109) and Stephen Cook on 47 (he made 115) in a match England would lose, albeit a dead rubber.

Trevor Bayliss admitted Bairstow was “a work in progress” then but there remains yards to be put in. Unless he passes the mitts to Jos Buttler for the Pakistan series, bumps up the order and squeezes the out-of-nick Nick Compton into the wilderness.

Sri Lanka’s fightback in the second half of the second day was impressive but showed the docile nature of the pitch - on which England should never have been 84 for 4. The diminutive Kaushal Silva will go to bed 79 not out and he batted brilliantly, positive from the off, and he may even dream of one cover drive off James Anderson that raced to the rope.

Karunaratne looked good too and he and Silva took 23 off the first three overs as Anderson and Stuart Broad failed to find conditions as conducive as they had been in Leeds and Durham earlier in the series. When Karunaratne fell, Kusal Menis joined the fun reaching 25 at close.

Woakes was the best England bowler, hitting the lifeless deck hard, but he got no help from either umpire Rod Tucker - who turned down a leg before shout that England reviewed and proved to be ‘only’ clipping the stumps - or Bairstow.

Criticism seems churlish when Bairstow had just batted for almost seven hours across two days and faced 251 balls in compiling his highest Test score - but he would not, and should not, use that as an excuse. He batted beautifully again, time no issue, to add another 60 runs to his overnight 107, guiding England up to their impressive total.

Dimuth Karunaratne plays a shot into the leg-side during the second day (Getty)

The innings was the second best by an English gloveman after Alec Stewart’s 173 in Auckland in 1997 and added to his annus mirabilis in which he has also made 150 at Cape Town and 140 on his home patch of Headingley in this series’ first Test.

The 26-year-old played shots all round the ground that typified a man in the touch of his life with bat in hand. There was one lovely late dab with the delicacy of a surgeon to the third man boundary from the bowling of Eranga that brought up the 300. And, later, a cover drive off Rangana Herath where he waited for the ball, got to the pitch and caressed it through the slightest of gaps between two extra covers but with the pace to beat deep mid-off, running round, to the ropes.

England piled on 105 largely untroubled runs in the morning with Bairstow and Woakes taking their partnership, 52 overnight, up to 144 to shift the power to the home team as the Sri Lankan bowlers, so impressive on day one, failed to extract any untoward movement - neither vertical nor horizontal - out of the surface.

Jonny Bairstow celebrates reaching 150 against Sri Lanka (Getty)

Twenty minutes before lunch with the score on 371, Woakes, with a Test best score of 66 to his name, chipped a return catch to Herath who juggled the ball like it was a hot pie before clutching it gratefully to his chest.

After the interval Bairstow played his one and only false shot of the day, nicking a Lakmal delivery between a wide first slip and the wicketkeeper. The tail then twitched but Broad fell for 14, slashing to gully, was then followed by Finn who top-edged Herath - who took four wickets - to deep square for 7.

Anderson ran an Eranga ball off the face of the bat to third man for four, tried to repeat the trick next ball and perished caught behind to leave Bairstow unbroken at the other end. But his blooper was still to come.