Record-breaker Joe Root leaves Sri Lanka with huge task in second Test

London: Joe Root set an England record of 34 Test centuries as the hosts left Sri Lanka with a mammoth chase to win the second Test at Lord's on Saturday.

Root's 103, the star batsman's second hundred of the match after he made 143 in the first innings, took England to a second-innings total of 251 all out on the third day.

Sri Lanka needed 483 to level this three-Test series at 1-1 following England's five-wicket win at Old Trafford last week.

The highest fourth-innings total to win a match in 147 years of Test history is the West Indies' 418-7 against Australia at St John's in 2002/03, with the corresponding Lord's record the West Indies' 344-1 against England in 1984.

Root was eventually last man out for 103 after edged ahead of retired England opener Alastair Cook's mark of 33 Test centuries.

His seventh Test hundred at Lord's also gave him sole possession of the record for the most Test centuries at the 'Home of Cricket' he had shared with England's Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan, who both managed six apiece.

Root was also just the fourth batsman to have scored hundreds in both innings of a Test at Lord's, joining the West Indies' George Headley (1939), Gooch (1990) and Vaughan (2004).

England started the day on 25-1, already 256 runs ahead, after dismissing Sri Lanka for 196 in reply to their first-innings 427.

Overcast skies, with the floodlights switched on, made conditions more difficult for batting as England chased an unassailable 2-0 lead in this three-match series after a five-wicket win at Old Trafford last week.

Opener Ben Duckett, who had added just nine runs to his overnight 15, soon drove hard off paceman Milan Rathnayake, with second slip Angelo Mathews catching the rebound after an outside edge deflected off gully.

Pope falls cheaply again

Ollie Pope, two not out overnight, ended a run of three single-figure scores since succeeding the injured Ben Stokes as England captain at the start of this series.

But Pope, who prior to this match had spoken about the difficulties of balancing the responsibility of captaincy with his role as a No 3 batsman, gave his wicket away on 17.

Asitha Fernando dropped short and Pope, perhaps conscious of the danger of hooking with three fielders on the legside boundary, backed away only for his retreating square slash to fly straight to Prabath Jayasuriya at deep point.

England were 69-3 but led by exactly 300 runs.

New batsman Harry Brook should have been out for nine when he top-edged a slog sweep off left-arm spinner Jayasuriya.

But a back-pedalling Nishan Madushka, fielding in the deep after deputising as wicketkeeper for Dinesh Chandimal in England's first innings, dropped a two-handed chance he should have caught.

Jayasuriya did dismiss Brook for 37, with Madushka making no mistake at deep midwicket, and had Jamie Smith lbw for 26 after the wicketkeeper missed a sweep.

Root, however, made no such mistake as he twice swept and then reverse-swept Jayasuriya for three fours in an over.

But after Gus Atkinson, fresh from his maiden first-class century of 118 in the first innings and Matthew Potts both fell in quick succession, Root - then 88 not out - risked running out of partners before he reached three figures.

Olly Stone held firm with an elated Root going to his hundred when he cut Lahiru Kumara for a 10th four in just 111 balls faced before he holed out off the paceman to end the innings.