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Chester-le-Street - England captain Alastair Cook was still waiting for his 10 000th Test run after falling five short of the landmark figure on the first day of the second Test against Sri Lanka at the Riverside on Friday.
At lunch, England were 83 for two, with Cook out for 15 after winning the toss in overcast conditions.
Alex Hales was 45 not out, following his Test-best 86 in England's innings and 88-run victory in the first of this three-match series at Headingley last week.
Joe Root was unbeaten on 12.
Left-handed opener Cook started his innings knowing he needed to make 20 to become the first England batsman and only 12th in history to score 10 000 Test runs.
He accumulated runs patiently Friday, although Cook did score one boundary with a whip pull up on one leg off Suranga Lakmal - a kind of mirror image of the shot made famous by retired West Indies right-handed opener Gordon Greenidge.
But Lakmal, in for the injured Dushmantha Chameera dismissed Cook when he had the 31-year-old Essex batsman, not moving his feet and playing well away from his body and pushing outside off stump, well caught low to his left by a diving Dimuth Karunaratne at second slip.
Cook's exit left England 39 for one.
New batsman Nick Compton accepted in the build-up to this match he was playing for his Test place after his duck in the hosts' lone innings at Headngley followed a modest return of 245 runs in four matches during England's series win in South Africa.
Compton, however, was out for nine when he top-edged a hook off Nuwan Pradeep and Lakmal, when it seemed the ball had cleared him, held a brilliant two-handed catch at long leg that left him facing the boundary and just inches from the rope.
Lakmal capped a good morning's work with session figures of one wicket for 17 runs in nine overs.
Hales, who survived a couple of good lbw shouts, struck seven fours, including a drive on the up through mid-off against Pradeep.
Root got off the mark by pulling Pradeep for four.
