England wrap up series in front of sparse Lord's crowd

England claimed a series victory against Sri Lanka, with Gus Atkinson taking five wickets in front of a meagre crowd at the Home of Cricket.

- SONIA TWIGG

The tourists put up a strong fight, with Dimuth Karunaratne making 55 and Dinesh Chandimal 58, but Atkinson steered England to victory with another five-wicket haul in what has been a memorable maiden Test summer for the Surrey seamer.

Sri Lanka had started the day on 53 for two after bad light had forced a premature end to the evening session the night before, but the result already felt like a foregone conclusion with the tourists needing a world-record 483 to win, and Ollie Pope’s team claimed the 190-run victory just after 5pm on the fourth day.

Throughout the first three days of the Test match, while not sold out, the attendance at Lord’s was fairly solid, despite the start of the Premier League, and a significant improvement on Old Trafford for the first match. However, the fourth day of play was a markedly different scene, the top tiers of three of the stands around the ground were empty, with others sparsely populated. It was obvious from the mostly empty Tube station before the start of play that the normal buzz would at least be subdued.