Photos from Colombo

England's chances melted in the heat as Thilan Samaraweera and Mahela Jayawardene starred for Sri Lanka.

The home side reached 563-5 at close of play, a lead of 298, after the third wicket pair punished fielding lapses with a stand of 262.

Samaraweera hit a Test-best 142 after being dropped on 98, and Jayawardene had two let-offs in his 134.

Tillakaratne Dilshan (72) and Upul Chandana (54) put on 107 in the final session to pile on the agony.

The omens were not good for England after they were kept awake half the night by a noisy function in the team hotel.

And after a fatiguing day in the field on Friday, they soon realised this one was going to be even worse.

Resuming on 264-2, Sri Lanka were clearly intent on batting only once in the game, prompting skipper Vaughan to adopt defensive field placings.

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Spinner Ashley Giles tried to stifle the runs by concentrating his line of attack outside leg stump to the right-handers, but his sole success came when he bowled the left-handed Hashan Tillakaratne for 12 after tea.

By then, Sri Lanka were in total command after Samaraweera and Jayawardene set a new partnership record for the Sinhalese Sports Club ground.

Jayawardene was fortunate to survive on 71 when Andrew Flintoff found the edge and Mark Butcher, diving low to his left at gully, could not hang onto the chance.

It was Butcher's last contribution of the day as he went off for treatment for a bruised hand and he was later joined by Flintoff, who suffered a groin problem.

The Lancashire all-rounder also saw Giles drop Jayawardene in the deep, but finally achieved the breakthrough with the total on exactly 400 when substitute Paul Collingwood made no mistake at square leg.

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It was Jayawardene's 10th Test century, an innings including a six and 14 fours, and he beat Samaraweera to three figures after they went into lunch on 99 and 98 respectively.

Samaraweera should have been denied a century when he dabbed Gareth Batty to Marcus Trescothick at slip, but he floored his third chance out of five in the match.

It was a costly miss and Samaraweera batted for 491 minutes in total, producing a series of flashing strokes during the afternoon before he was run out after a mix-up with Dilshan.

Tillakaratne's contribution was brief, but he had the satisfaction of watching Dilshan and Chandana continue to torment a wilting England attack.

Chandana hit two fours and a six off successive balls from the inexperienced Batty, who ended the day with figures of 0-137 from 40 overs.

Sri Lanka: S Jayasuriya, M Atapattu, K Sangakkara (wkt), M Jayawardene, T Dilshan, H Tillakaratne (capt), T Samaraweera, U Chandana, C Vaas, Dilhara Fernando, M Muralitharan.

England: M Vaughan (capt), M Trescothick, M Butcher, N Hussain, G Thorpe, A Flintoff, C Read (wkt), G Batty, A Giles, J Kirtley, J Anderson.