Angelo Mathews rues slow Sri Lanka start

Angelo Mathews concedes it took Sri Lanka too long to get going in the lost Test series against England.

Sri Lanka headed into the third and final Test having already slipped to an unassailable 2-0 deficit, and the tourists needed to chase down 362 on the final day at Lord's to earn a consolation win.

However, heavy rain meant that play was limited and the match petered out into a draw.

Mathews says Sri Lanka did not make the series a contest until the second innings in the second Test at Durham, by which time the damage had largely been done.

"I thought we started off pretty poorly in the first couple of games. We came into the series in our second innings in Durham," he said.

"It would have been an interesting chase today but the weather interrupted. We wanted to go for it.

"We tried our best and trained really hard in these conditions. There are lots of positives even though we lost the series, all the bowlers bowled well and Kusal Mendis, Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal batted well.

"Now we've had a good month or so in England so hopefully we can come back and beat England [in the ODI series]."