fter making his maiden hundred in the first innings, Atkinson became only the third England player to score a century and take five wickets in a Test, and first since Lord Botham in 1984.
In front of a sparse fourth-day crowd at Lord’s, the home side were held up by half-centuries from Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal and captain Dhananjaya de Silva.
England had the luxury of a mountain of runs – Sri Lanka were chasing a record 483 to win – but had to overcome some benign conditions, belated application from the tourists and two Joe Root dropped catches.
The tourists battled past tea, when Atkinson grasped the second new ball to hustle through the tail. He ended with 5-62 to leave Sri Lanka 292 all out and beaten by 190 runs.
The victory is England’s fifth in succession and gives them a second series triumph of the summer, following the 3-0 clean sweep against West Indies in July.
For Sri Lanka, this is a first defeat in six visits to Lord’s, following five draws stretching back to 2002.
The final Test at The Oval begins on Friday, with England looking for their first 100% Test summer since they earned seven wins in 2004.
This was another routine win in a highly successful summer for the revamped England team. Here they absorbed a further injury, this time to Mark Wood, with Olly Stone returning and fitting into a team that is looking strong in most areas.
The down side for the hosts were the lack of runs for makeshift opener Dan Lawrence and stand-in captain Ollie Pope, who has been unable to show he can combine leadership with contributing at number three.
Sri Lanka may regret their decision to bowl first after winning the toss, yet the good batting conditions late into the game showed the tourists may have been on to something.
Ultimately, Sri Lanka were beaten by their poor display with the bat in the first innings, Atkinson’s all-round brilliance and twin centuries from Root, the second of which took him to an England record 34 tons.
The electric atmosphere when Root reached his historic milestone on Saturday was in contrast to swathes of empty seats on Sunday.
Some will point to the cost of tickets. The cheapest adult entry was £95 and it is true that watching Test cricket can be prohibitively expensive, not only at Lord’s.
Perhaps there is also a reluctance to invest in fourth-day tickets when most of England’s Tests this summer have been one-sided.
It raises questions whether the English game, and other global powerhouses Australia and India, are doing enough to protect Test cricket. The big nations cannot simply play each other, so must do all they can to ensure as many teams as possible are competitive in the longer format.
England’s push for victory was delayed by bad light on the third evening. As Sri Lanka began Sunday on 53-2, an improbable 430 runs adrift, the question was not if England would win, but when.
The hosts were initially held up by opener Karunaratne and nightwatchman Prabath Jayasuriya. England failed with two reviews against Karunaratne, while Root dropped the same batter at first slip off Atkinson.
With little assistance for the bowlers, Pope shuffled his attack, adjusted his field to sometimes employ as many as eight catchers, and asked Stone to bowl spells of bouncers.
Chris Woakes drew Jayasuriya into an edge to second slip, only for Chandimal to arrive and add 55 with Karunaratne, then another 59 with Angelo Mathews.
Though Stone’s hostility was rewarded with Karunaratne’s tickle down the leg side, Chandimal was aggressive, especially against off-spinner Shoaib Bashir. Chandimal’s 42-ball half-century was his quickest in Tests.
But after Mathews patted Bashir to mid-off, Atkinson got the big wicket of Chandimal, caught at short leg. When the in-form Kamindu Mendis flashed the same bowler to second slip, the game seemed up.
Sri Lanka dug in once more. Dhananjaya found support from Milan Rathnayake, the number nine bravely coming through a blow to the helmet off Stone to add 73 for the eighth wicket.
England took the second new ball, Root put down a straightforward Rathnayake edge off Atkinson, so the bowler instead hit the stumps off Dhananjaya’s toe end.
Atkinson took the bottom edge of the swiping Rathnayake to join Botham and Tony Grieg as the only England men to do the hundred-five-wicket double in the same Test, then Woakes had Lahiru Kumara sky to mid-on to finish it. (BBC)
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