Close England 401 for 5 (Trescothick 161, Butcher 94, Muralitharan 4 for 105) lead Sri Lanka 162 by 239 runs
scorecard

This is how it was supposed to be when England invited Sri Lanka to play a Test series in May and June. Having skittled the opposition amid a flurry of sideways movement and angled bats, they made hay while the sun shone.

On the second day at Edgbaston Marcus Trescothick butchered 161, Mark Butcher cruised to 94, and despite a few wobbles in the final session as Muttiah Muralitharan weaved a bewitching spell, England established a position of utter dominance. They lead by 239 with five first-innings wickets intact, having smacked 377 runs in 105 overs. Graham Thorpe (30 not out) and Andrew Flintoff (14 not out) will hope to put the boot in tomorrow morning.

The tone for the day was set in the first hour, when Trescothick and Michael Vaughan plundered 52 off the first 10 overs. The partnership had reached 92 when Vaughan, who played beautifully for his 46, top-edged a needless hoick across the line off Muralitharan to short backward square leg.

But with the new, studious Butcher easing in gently, Trescothick carried on peppering the boundary boards. England were 146 for 1 at lunch, and though progress was sedate for a time, a wayward spell from Chaminda Vaas singled a change of tempo. Trescothick then laced Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya for a pair of spanking cover-drives, before enduring a couple of anxious moments on 99, the same score on which he fell against India at Ahmedabad last December. But an uppish drive looped over the close fielders, and Trescothick scampered through for his first hundred since the second Test against Pakistan in 2001, almost a year ago to the day.

With a century in the bag, Trescothick really turned on the style. He launched the part-time spin of Jayasuriya for a vast straight six, repeated the dose a few overs later to pass his highest score in Tests. Then he turned his attention to Aravinda de Silva, flinging him over midwicket to reach 150. He even pulled out the reverse sweep to Jayasuriya, and continued to excel against Murali, who has yet to dismiss him in a Test. At the other end, Butcher attacked the seamers with his crisp punched drives and roundhouse cut shots, and looked well set for a second consecutive century.

The partnership finally came to an end at 202, an England record for any wicket against Sri Lanka, when Trescothick clipped the last ball before tea from Vaas to short midwicket (294 for 2).

The evening session wasn't quite such plain sailing, and England did stutter towards the end of the day. With Vaas finally finding some rhythm at one end, and Murali - who bowled 42 overs in the day - probing relentlessly at the other, England finally had a sustained threat to deal with.

Butcher's patient innings came to an end when he was bowled by Murali - a mirror image of Shane Warne's Ball of the Century to Mike Gatting in 1993. It pitched almost two feet outside leg stump and turned violently to clip the top of off (338 for 3). The acknowledgement on Butcher's face said it all: he had been beaten fair and square.

In Murali's next over Nasser Hussain (22) went to another ripping, spitting delivery. Padding up as far as he believed he could without toppling over, Hussain was beaten all ends up as the ball came back a long way to brush the underside of his thigh and dribble onto the stumps (341 for 4).

After a torrid little spell Alec Stewart, never the most assertive starter against spin, was caught at short leg off Murali (368 for 5). Stewart had blundered to 7 off 40 balls, but his concentration was not helped by a ten-minute delay just before his dismissal, caused by spectators throwing things onto the field. He looked disgusted as he left the crease, his chance of a century to commemorate the Queen's Jubilee - as he had the Queen Mother's 100th birthday two years ago - almost certainly gone.

Instead the honour went to Trescothick. His four previous centuries for England have come in defeats, but it will have taken something special if, this time, he doesn't rid himself of the hoodoo.

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