Ollie Pope's brilliant century propels England ahead in rain-hit Oval Test against Sri Lanka

The Pope, facing scrutiny following a series of poor performances, silenced his doubters by scoring his seventh test century. This impressive feat came after Ben Duckett scored a fluent 86 in challenging overcast conditions, leaving Sri Lanka rueing their decision to bowl first.

England, who clinched the series with a comprehensive victory at Lord's last week, were put into bat under gloomy skies and lost the early wicket of Dan Lawrence.

Lawrence, on five, skied an ambitious pull off Lahiru Kumara and was caught by Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva, the opener trudging off disconsolately after another failure on his return to the side.

Duckett made light of tricky batting conditions, however, to reach his half-century from 48 balls before play was halted due to bad light.

The umpires led the players off the field with England on 76-1 and it was nearly three hours before the match resumed.

Duckett continued to play positively, hitting a brilliant six with a ramp off Kumara before attempting a similar shot off Milan Rathnayake and giving wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal a simple catch.

Pope signalled his intentions with an early six over backward square leg off Kumara and he was joined by Joe Root who made two centuries at Lord's, but the former captain only scored 13 before he was caught at long leg by Vishwa Fernando off Kumara.

Pope was not distracted, however, and the skipper drove Asitha Fernando sweetly to the cover boundary to reach three figures, raising his bat to all corners of the ground as regular captain Ben Stokes stood to applaud him on the team balcony.

The umpires again took the players off the field due to the poor light and they never returned, leaving Pope and Harry Brook (eight not out) to resume on Saturday.