When I declared with 4 sessions to go, I was not expecting this...
Start at the start. We won the toss and batted, and batted rather well. The openers put on 96 for the first wicket, and Barrington reached his first test 50 exactly, before hewing one to mid off. A couple more quick wickets followed, and when we were left at 154/5, we got the feeling this tour might be difficult. Two brilliant partnerships involving the wicket keeper put a stop to those thoughts though. First up, he put on 117 with new number 6 Shane Burton, which was actually the highest Test partnership for the 6th wicket I've had on this game! After Burton had departed for 75, Browne put on another 120 with Kev Stoute! In this partnership, Stoute was definitely in control, and the aggressor on so many fronts. Browne's innings was dogged, but he could not hold it together for quite long enough, as he was caught at mid off off the débutante 19 year old medium pacer Siwar de Seram. Brathwaite held around a bit while Stoute piled on more runs, but Matthew and Narine got out in double quick time, and Stoute was left stranded, also falling just short of his first test century.
Their first innings also went well for us. Despite a hundred partnership between Faumi and Mathews early on, we managed to get them down to 148/4, and never really looked back from there. Jabbar also resisted for a fair while, but was eventually caught behind off the bowling of Matthew, and the tail crumbled to a combination of Alford and Narine to leave us with a lead of over 150, and a good chance at victory!
Barath fell early for 3, but Barrington (25), Bravo (51) and Alford (31) battled back to keep us ticking over, and well in front of the Lankans. When Shane Burton was out after what was a rather fun innings of 15, the keeper came in and helped us to buckle down again. An unbeaten partnership of 89 between him and Captain Kirk was exactly what we needed, and as Browne reached his 3rd test 50 on the stroke of tea on the 4th day, we decided to declare, with the lead having nudged over 400.
What happened next was... ridiculous. The openers put on 116, followed by another 144 from that Faumi/Mathews combination. Just when we thought we might be making breakthroughs, as Faumi and Serasinghe fell quickly, Mathews put on another century partnership, this time 104 with Perera. Brathwaite got his wicket eventually, and Stoute removed Jabbar, but it was all too late and Sri Lanka had gobbled up 400 like we'd asked them to chase 150.
Start at the start. We won the toss and batted, and batted rather well. The openers put on 96 for the first wicket, and Barrington reached his first test 50 exactly, before hewing one to mid off. A couple more quick wickets followed, and when we were left at 154/5, we got the feeling this tour might be difficult. Two brilliant partnerships involving the wicket keeper put a stop to those thoughts though. First up, he put on 117 with new number 6 Shane Burton, which was actually the highest Test partnership for the 6th wicket I've had on this game! After Burton had departed for 75, Browne put on another 120 with Kev Stoute! In this partnership, Stoute was definitely in control, and the aggressor on so many fronts. Browne's innings was dogged, but he could not hold it together for quite long enough, as he was caught at mid off off the débutante 19 year old medium pacer Siwar de Seram. Brathwaite held around a bit while Stoute piled on more runs, but Matthew and Narine got out in double quick time, and Stoute was left stranded, also falling just short of his first test century.
Their first innings also went well for us. Despite a hundred partnership between Faumi and Mathews early on, we managed to get them down to 148/4, and never really looked back from there. Jabbar also resisted for a fair while, but was eventually caught behind off the bowling of Matthew, and the tail crumbled to a combination of Alford and Narine to leave us with a lead of over 150, and a good chance at victory!
Barath fell early for 3, but Barrington (25), Bravo (51) and Alford (31) battled back to keep us ticking over, and well in front of the Lankans. When Shane Burton was out after what was a rather fun innings of 15, the keeper came in and helped us to buckle down again. An unbeaten partnership of 89 between him and Captain Kirk was exactly what we needed, and as Browne reached his 3rd test 50 on the stroke of tea on the 4th day, we decided to declare, with the lead having nudged over 400.
What happened next was... ridiculous. The openers put on 116, followed by another 144 from that Faumi/Mathews combination. Just when we thought we might be making breakthroughs, as Faumi and Serasinghe fell quickly, Mathews put on another century partnership, this time 104 with Perera. Brathwaite got his wicket eventually, and Stoute removed Jabbar, but it was all too late and Sri Lanka had gobbled up 400 like we'd asked them to chase 150.
Series State | Sri Lanka lead the series 1-0 with 1 to play. |
Batting Award | Max Browne - An unlikely batting hero, but just under 150 runs in the test. |
Bowling Award | Sunil Narine - He took 5 wickets. Yeah. Best of a bad bunch of figures. |
Team News | On a dustier pitch, Imran Khan replaces Merv Matthew. |
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