By Jonathan Agnew BBC cricket correspondent

Agnew's Close of Play - BBC Radio Five Live

Sri Lanka were left rueing some dubious
shot-selection as England took control of the second Test.

The conditions were ideal for bowling with the pitch offering movement off the seam and, occasionally, some awkward bounce, but too many casual strokes were played under the circumstances.

Nasser Hussain must have been delighted to have won the toss.

Under heavy skies, and after days of rain, it was inevitable that the pitch would start damp.

Quite correctly, England chose to leave out Dominic Cork in favour of Alex Tudor, while John Crawley stood down to allow England to play their spinner, Ashley Giles.

Caddick strikes to remove Sanath Jayasuriya

To be fair to the selectors, this was one reason for their decision not to choose Ian Bell at Lord's: they knew that the junior batsman in the team would probably miss out here.

With the current depth to England's batting, the balance of the team looks far healthier and the approach more positive with Andrew Flintoff batting at number seven, and with the attack consisting of four seamers and a spinner.

We wondered how England's bowlers would respond to the conditions after such strong criticism of their performance at Lord's and the answer was that, Andy Caddick apart, it was an inconsistent display.

Awkward lift

Once again, there was far too much aimed at the leg stump which was picked off easily by Sri Lanka's wristy batsmen, but Caddick quickly discovered that there was steepling, unsettling bounce from the Pavilion End and settled into an intimidating spell.

Matthew Hoggard was forced to trudge into the gale, which was clearly awkward, and although Atapattu edged a good one, and Jayasuriya nicked Caddick to slip, Sangakkara and Jayawardene put on 53 for the third wicket with few alarms.

But Sangakkara flung the bat at a wide one from Flintoff that he could barely reach - it really was a terrible shot - and this opened the door for England once again.

Jayawardene square cuts for Sri Lanka

Tudor picked up a couple of wickets in a single over, abetted, once again, by a horrid shot from Zoysa, and the tail was quickly despatched.

Interestingly, the innings ended in high confusion when Buddhika was run out.

This was the result of a complete misunderstanding with Muralitharan who played only one stroke in his brief innings, and this was a one-handed swipe.

Sri Lanka have taken a real gamble in playing their star bowler, but if he really is unable to bat with two hands, and his presence at the crease creates such mayhem, one begun to wonder how much of a part he will be able to play over the next four days.

The answer came soon enough when, in his first over, Vaughan edged a very sharp, low chance to slip.

England's openers survived, but Murali still promises to be a handful: one-handed, or not.