Sri Lanka have romped to 1-94 before bad light stopped play needing 125 more runs to secure a well-deserved turnaround victory in the third Test against England and avoid a 3-0 series whitewash.

Pathum Nissanka led the way with a sparkling 53 not out, making hay in the late Sunday evening sunshine after England had earlier been put to the sword under floodlights during a chaotic third day at The Oval.

The visitors seem set to claim victory, barring yet another twist in a match full of them.

"It certainly hasn't been one of our better days of Test cricket this year," England assistant coach Paul Collingwood said.

"It's pretty easy to make the excuse and say it's complacency but there's plenty of fun and desire in there. We wanted a clean sweep. The lads are very proud of playing for England so there's certainly been no complacency coming into this match.

"We'll always try and knock the bowlers off their lengths and find a way to apply pressure on the opposition. Sometimes it doesn't work and today it didn't come off."

England, who have already beaten West Indies 3-0 and looked on course for a perfect summer, swiftly squandered a first-innings lead of 62 with a tired display of top-order slogging, and then almost redeemed themselves thanks to one of their new stars.

That they even had 218 to defend was down almost solely to Jamie Smith (67), one of England's discoveries of the summer.

Coming in at a perilous 5-69, Surrey's Smith took one Milan Rathnayake over for 20 on his way to a superb half-century in front of his home crowd.

Ben Duckett (seven), Ollie Pope (seven), Dan Lawrence (35) and Joe Root (12) earlier all fell swinging, sacrificed at the altar of the relentlessly aggressive philosophy that has brought England so much success in recent years.

Vishwa Fernando took the prize wicket of Root, rapping him on the boot with an inswinger, and then doing the same to Harry Brook.

Once Smith holed out to midwicket, the tail could add only a few boundaries to leave the hosts well short of a commanding total as the sun came out and batting conditions improved at just the wrong time for them.

England had begun the day in the ascendancy, briskly removing the overnight pair of Dhananjaya de Silva (69) and Kamindu Mendis (64).

Fernando (0) went lbw before Olly Stone removed the dangerous tail-end hitter Rathnayake (seven) and Shoaib Bashir mopped up Asitha Fernando (0) to give the hosts what seemed at the time a useful first innings lead.

"The guys in the dressing room will hold their hands up, Collingwood added.

"But we still have an opportunity to go and win the match. There's enough in the pitch to get nine wickets but we need a lot of things to go our way."

With PA.