Russel Arnold opened with a flourish but then settled to play a controlled innings to justify his promotion to open in place of Sanath Jayasuriya. He has scored a century before from this position in the order before, and went to his fifty with a flashing square cut off Alex Tudor with his tenth four in a 53 ball innings.

Atapattu had been playing in characteristic careful fashion when he suffered his unfortunate injury. Flintoff had been generating a fair degree of pace and bounce throughout his spell, and surprised the batsman who took it flush on the finger and immediately began writhing in obvious pain.

Kumar Sangakkara replaced Atapattu in the middle, settling in well to deal with both the pace of Tudor and the spin of Ashley Giles who tried to use the rough of the footholds. The left-armer did get some turn, but could not effect the breakthrough for which his captain was looking by setting innovative fields.

With England one up in the series, there was no obligation on Nasser Hussain to declare and so deprive Stewart of the century that somehow seemed inevitable. Apart from one appeal for a possible stumping that was turned down by the third umpire, Stewart scarcely suffered a moment to ruffle his composure.

He reached his century from 146 balls with 16 fours, and faced another 44 balls that produced a single further boundary before his innings came to and end when he was caught at bat/pad on the off side pushing forward to Muralitharan. The manner of reaching his century was worthy of note, as he moved from 86 to 102 in four balls from Dilhara Fernando, each one of which was despatched to the boundary with authority.

He had lost his partner of 28 overs, Giles, when they had enjoyed a century partnership to take the score past 500. Giles had scored a vast majority of his 45 runs behind square in the sort of knock that he has often promised but seldom produced at this level. It took a juggling catch from Kumar Sangakkara to dismiss him at a time when he might have been harbouring visions of a first half-century. Fernando finished the innings with his first ball when returning to the attack from the Warwick Road end by producing an inswinging yorker that was too good for Matthew Hoggard.

Hoggard did not enjoy a happy time with the ball when he opened the bowling for England. Russel Arnold, opening the innings, leaned back to slash the first two balls he received for four over slips, and later took another boundary as Hoggard was removed from the attack after two overs that cost 17, including four no balls.

For the last half hour of the session, attention switched to the Stretford end, where the football was being shown on a large television screen. If noted football fan Stewart had his attention elsewhere, he did not show it. Indeed, the next ball after England's opening goal saw the Surrey man stroking an elegant four through the off side.

Giles did not always look entirely comfortable, and most of his runs came behind square, but he held on and will be hoping to play a similar role to that of Matthew Hoggard at Edgbaston where he shepherded Graham Thorpe to a century.

Stewart obviously had his mind set on three figures, while Tudor was happy to live more adventurously. He did not necessarily look secure, but he played one imperious carve through the off side to send a ball from Vaas racing towards the backward point boundary.

Tudor had reached 19 when he tried to repeat the stroke and touched it to Russel Arnold at slip to give Vaas his 200th wicket in Test cricket. There followed a mass exodus from the ground. It should be pointed out that this had nothing to do with Tudor's dismissal but the fact that spectators were taking advantage of the large television screen erected in the car park at the Stretford end showing the England versus Denmark World Cup football match.