Sri Lanka v England: first Test, day five – live!

19th over: England 50-3 (Bairstow 19, Lawrence 11) Target 74 The ball is doing plenty out there but after Bairstow turns one, Lawrence does a good job of intimating enjoyment before bringing up the fifty with a twizzle to leg.

Meanwhile, Arun kindly sends over the TMS link:

18th over: England 48-3 (Bairstow 18, Lawrence 10) Target 74 Lawrence takes one to midwicket; I wonder how he slept last night. All those years of hard yakka and now he’s here, under pressure he’ll never have grasped until now; well, pressure is a privilege as they say, and be careful what you wish for as they also say. Bairstow eases a single behind square on the off side, then wears another on the pad and there’s a shout but no review; when Chandimal sees a replay, he looks slightly tzemisht that he didn’t review, and two singles follow.

17th over: England 44-3 (Bairstow 16, Lawrence 8) Target 74 Bairstow drives out to deep point, finding the sweeper, and they run one, then again next ball. He too won’t wait to be asked, and to the third ball, he rocks back and it’s cut away, cut away for four! This is very good from him; just as impressively, he allows Embuldeniya’s third ball to go by, very close to his off-peg; my stomach is in turmoil at that one!

17th over: England 38-3 (Bairstow 11, Lawrence 7) Target 74 Maiden to begin. Lawrence looks busy out there; he’s not going to wait for one with his name on it.

The ball brushed Lawrence’s glove, but the umpire probably said no because impact was outside the line.

16th over: England 38-3 (Bairstow 11, Lawrence 7) It was 1955-157 that England last won four straight overseas Tests, but that’s the last thing on anyone’s mind when Perera clouts Lawrence on thae pad when he misses with a sweep! Kumar Dhamasena says not out, and they go upstairs! Drama!

Email! “Good morning to you,” says John Starbuck. “I’ve sometimes wondered if the OBO scribes have an internal league going on: who was writing when the match was won/drawn/lost and how many points do you get? Naturally, in normal times the winner each year would have to buy the others a drink or two.”

I’m not sure. Not that I know of, but there’s every chance no one’s told me.

Morning! How are you? I’m dreadful thanks for asking, same as you – and just like you I’d not have it any other way

In theory, this should be simple: England need 36 runs to win, and have seven second-innings wickets intact; easy. Yeah, just. At the wicket is an impetuous headbanger with a point to prove, and a debutant who’s never experienced anything remotely like this; with the ball are various spinners on home territory; and in between them is a pitch doing loads but not too much.

Yet, somehow, enumerating things in that way doesn’t even come close to capturing what’s going on, because what’s going cannot be precisely captured. Where all this is sits in the continuum of English cricket is something we all share, the traipse through history a long and arduous one. But because it’s inextricably linked to our personal history, our experience of it is unique, particular and unintelligible to anyone who isn’t us … and even then.

So when Jonny Bairstow and Dan Lawrence walk out to the middle, some of us will be more moved by the enormity of the former’s redemption narrative, others by the latter contending with pressure of this sort following a lifetime working to contend with pressure of this sort. Real talk, I’m half-gone at the thought of what all that means to them – and I’ve not even started on myself yet.

Play: 9.45am local, 4.15am GMT