Captain Root scored 124 from just 146 balls on a tricky, turning pitch in ferocious heat. Truly, it was a brilliant innings.
With Rory Burns scoring his maiden Test fifty and Ben Foakes 51 not out when bad light and rain halted play early, England took a strong grip on the match.
Jos Buttler and Keaton Jennings also made useful contributions and England were 324-9 by the close of day three – a lead of 278 runs. That is going to be a tough chase for Sri Lanka on a surface that heavily favours spin bowlers.
England’s position would have been more dominant but for a late collapse in which they lost three late second innings wickets for just four runs.
Root’s innings was sprinkled with sweeps, reverse sweeps, some forces off the back foot and the occasional clubbing blow over mid-wicket.
It was his 15th Test century and one of his best. Perhaps only his hundred against Australia in Cardiff in 2015 and one against South Africa in Johannesburg in 2018 match it.
He appeared to know exactly what he was doing against the Sri Lankan slow men. He attacked to force fielders back and then milked the ball around for ones and twos.
Root and his team-mates were aggressive at every opportunity, reasoning that an unplayable ball might never be far away.
England were so positive that they scored 131 runs before lunch and a further 87 in the first hour after the interval.
All the batsmen favoured the sweep and reverse sweep shots. It brought them plenty of runs but, amazingly, the first seven wickets all fell to sweeps or reverses.
Nightwatchman and stand-in opener Jack Leach didn’t last long and was lbw when he missed an attempted sweep. Jennings put on 73 with Burns before reversing into the hands of first slip.
Burns batted really well for 59 but he, too, missed a sweep shot. Ben Stokes aimed something similar at his second delivery and perished.
Both Burns and Stokes asked for reviews even though they must have guessed they were pretty much plumb lbw. It came back to bite England later when both Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid were wrongly given out – but England had burned both of their reviews.
Buttler helped Root put on 64 before dragging on a reverse and Moeen was also sweeping when struck on the pad.
Root reached three figures with an edge through slips in one of Suranga Lakmal’s four overs – the only quick bowling all innings – and celebrated by leaping and punching the air. He knew it was a cracker of an innings and, more important, helping his team to a likely victory.
Root was eventually out when leg before to a reverse and then Sam Curran was bowled first ball.
Rashid became the sixth lbw victim of the innings – wrongly given out as Akila Dananjaya took his sixth wicket just days after being reported for an illegal action – but Foakes and James Anderson added another 19 unbroken runs for the last wicket before play ended.
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