Angelo Mathews and Dhananjaya de Silva came to the rescue of Sri Lanka after Pakistan left-arm pacie Shaheen Afridi ripped through the host side's top order batting with three scalps in the morning session of play to have them struggling on 53 for 3, which helped them to end day one of the first World Test Championship match on 242/6 played at the Galle International Stadium today.
Afridi, coming back to the Test after a lapse of a year, was on a mission to bag his 100th Test wicket, and he not only achieved the feat with the wicket of opener Nishan Madushka but went on to have Sri Lanka's batting in tatters after the match resumed with Sri Lanka having faced 5.5 overs.
The loss of play was nearly an hour and a half, and the resumption saw Afridi striking hard, bagging two wickets from the three to fall very cheaply, that of Kusal Mendis and skipper Dimuth Karunaratne, with Dinesh Chandimal being taken by right-arm pacie Naseem Shah, to have the host side struggling on 54 for 4 before Angelo Mathews and Dhananjaya de Silva, who together held on till the lunch break with Sri Lanka on 65 for 4.
The post-lunch session saw Mathews and de Silva making steady progress, denying the Pakistan bowlers any success, and posting Sri Lanka’s 100 runs on the scoreboard, which followed with their 50-run partnership.
Mathews raced to his half-ton, which was his 39th of his career, and came off 88 balls that had seven boundaries. In the meantime, De Silva was on the verge of reaching his half-century, which he achieved with a massive six off Norman Ali that took him 89 balls and comprised four boundaries and a six, and the next over saw the pair posting their 100-run stand.
The pair had little threat from the Pakistan bowlers and had things their own way, and when the partnership reached 131 runs, Mathews, with a few minutes left for the tea break, mistimed a delivery of spinner Abrar Ahmed and only succeeded in offering wicketkeeper Sarfaraz Ahmed an easy catch, which ended his knock of 64 made in 109 balls that included nine boundaries as Sri Lanka went into tea on 185 for 5.
The post-tea session saw Dhananjaya de Silva joined by Sadeera Samarawickerama putting up Sri Lanka’s 200 runs on the scoreboard, and with the pair having added 41 runs, heavy rain brought the proceedings to a halt at 4.40 p.m.
A good 70 minutes were lost, and play was continued with light fading; however, only seven overs were possible as bad light forced the umpires to call off play for the day after the dismissal of Samarawickrama, who made 36 with five boundaries.
In between, de Silva and Samarawickrama posted their 50-run partnership, and at stoppage, Sri Lanka was on 242 for 6, with de Silva unbeaten on 94 in 157 balls, which had ten boundaries and three sixes.
Play will start at 9.45 a.m. tomorrow. (M. Shamil Amit Reporting from Galle / Pix: Pradeep Dilrukshana)
Scoreboard
Sri Lanka 1st innings
- N. Madushka c Ahmed b Afridi 04
- D. Karunaratne c Ahmed b Afridi 29
- K. Mendis c Salman b Afridi 12
- A. Mathews c S. Ahmed b A. Ahmed 64
- D. Chandimal c Azam b Shah 01
- D. de Silva not out 94
- S. Samarawickrama c ul-Haq b Salman 36
- Extras: (lb1, nb1) 02
- Total: (Five wickets, 65.4 overs) 242
- Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-22, 3-53, 4-54, 5-185, 6-242
- Bowling: S. Afridi 15-2-63-3, N. Shah 17-1-66-1, A. Ahmed 21-4-59-1, A. Salman 4.4-1-18-1, N. Ali 8-1-35-0
