Pakistan edge ahead with Shafique hundred

By Shehan Daniel reporting from Galle 

Abdullah Shafique’s unbeaten century ensured Pakistan stood firm in their pursuit of a record-breaking chase in Galle, although Sri Lanka gave themselves some hope of snatching victory in the first Test with the wicket of Babar Azam late on day four. 

Pakistan are better positioned in the game, finishing the day on 222 for 3 requiring a further 120 runs to go one-up in the two Test series, but the hosts will be encouraged by the sharp turn that their spinners were able to extract in the final hour of play.  

Up until then, Shafique and Azam had looked mostly untroubled, with the hosts’ bowlers toiling to consistently find the kind of assistance they would have anticipated on a pitch that had offered a good amount of turn on day one – the surface now appearing to have flattened out and become less challenging to bat on rather than deteriorate into the minefield that it normally is in Galle.  

All five of Shafique’s boundaries came in the first half of his 289-ball innings, his only other shot of aggression coming when he hit Jayasuriya straight down the ground for six. 

His solid defense and overall defiance saw him strike a 101-run partnership with Azam, during which he scored the second hundred in his tenth Test innings and Azam notched his 22nd fifty, before Jayasuriya bowled the Pakistan skipper around his legs. 

Jayasuriya bowling over the wicket, landed the ball outside the leg stump to turn into Azam, who on more than one occasion just chose to pad the ball away. 

What had been an innocuous approach from Azam proved to be his undoing, when Jayasuriya dropped the ball a little wider down the leg side and the batsman padded up to the wrong line, the ball sneaking behind Azam to hit the stumps. 

Azam had walked into bat when Pakistan lost two wickets within the space of 17 runs, and he showed intent right off the bat, attacking Jayasuriya, whipping the spinner for a boundary through the leg side on the second ball he faced. 

He then launched a delivery in Jayasuriya’s next over beyond the deep midwicket boundary, taking ten off that over with another four. 
Sri Lanka’s desperation to break the partnership cost them a review, when Azam padded up to Jayasuriya and was given not out, replays showing the ball pitching on middle and off would have easily missed the stumps. 

Having taken Pakistan to tea on 147, the Shafique-Azam partnership extended another 58 runs before Azam’s dismissal for 55. 

Shafique and his opening partner Imam-ul-Haq rode their luck early in Pakistan’s innings, each surviving close calls, to carry on unbroken into the lunch break at 68 for no loss. 

Jayasuriya shared the new ball with fast bowler Kasun Rajitha, and in his second over struck Shafique on the pads, the ball pitching on middle stump and going with the arm, with Sri Lanka’s loud appeals being turned down.

Sri Lanka reviewed but with the ball only clipping leg stump, there was not enough of overturn the decision, which was deemed an umpire’s call. 

Rajitha then jagged one sharply back into Imam in the next over, umpire Marius Erasmus adjudging the batsman out, but the opener reviewed and replays suggested the ball would miss the stumps, overturning the onfield call. 

Sri Lanka missed an opportunity in Rajitha’s next over, when Imam attempted to drive outside off stump and lobbed a catch over covers, Dinesh Chandimal running back, unable to hold on. 

Looking increasingly comfortable by the lunch break, they extended their partnership a further half a dozen overs before a quick piece of glove work from Niroshan Dickwella capitalized on Imam lifteing his grounded foot, effecting a stumping.  

A patient Azhar Ali mustered six runs off 31 deliveries, with Pakistan on 104 for 1 at the post-lunch drinks break, but he edged the first ball after to Dhananjaya Silva at first slip, attempting to drive Jayasuriya through the covers. 

Sri Lanka would have been confident of their chances, given the record for the highest successful run chase at this venue was a total of 268, despite adding just eight runs to their overnight score. 

Jayasuriya was the last man to fall in the fourth over of the day, his off-stump shattered by Naseem Shah, meaning that Chandimal could not complete a 14th Test century – the first time in his Test career that he got into the 90s and had not been able to score a century.