Ageless Root the master of Lord's again to place Sri Lanka under his spell

After 12 balls of increasing tension for the expectant crowd, bums fidgeting in seats and all trips to the bar put on hold, Joe Root opened the face of his bat, glided the ball through vacant fourth slip, and punched the air before it had even crossed the rope. Test century number 33 was in the bag and with it, a couple of slices of history too.

- Ali Martin

Root has already returned to No 1 in the Test batting rankings this summer but the patch of form the Yorkshireman finds himself in took on an even deeper shade of purple here. He equalled Alastair Cook's record for Test centuries by an Englishman and drew level with Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan with this his sixth at Lord's. Another English great was on his mind in the moment, however, Root looking up to the sky and remembering his late batting coach, Graham Thorpe.

Harry Brook had the temerity to call Root "grandad" recently but at 33 years old, and claiming to feel more like "Peter Pan" in this refreshed England team, there is the promise of more to come; more mountains to climb, like scratching the itch of a first century in Australia in 18 months' time or perhaps even an assault on Sachin Tendulkar's record 15,921 Test runs. Root is 3,647 away at the time of writing.

That is all to come and on the opening day of this second Test, as Sri Lanka sprung a surprise by opting to bowl first under blue skies and high clouds, England were simply grateful for another Root masterclass that was as vital as it was easy on the eye.

Before Peter Pan came a bit of a lost boys performance from the top order, three gift wickets in the morning that, with a lengthened lower order, made it imperative for a middle-order player to deliver an innings of substance.