Rain only saviour for West Indies as Sri Lanka eye big win

Sri Lankan pair Angelo Mathews (left) and Dimuth Karunaratne during their third wicket stand of 123

Sri Lanka off-spinner Ramesh Mendis was all over the West Indies in their second innings claiming four wickets

• Set a target of 348, stumble to 52/6

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

It seems that nothing but the rain will prevent Sri Lanka from winning the first Sobers – Tissera Trophy Test match against West Indies at the Galle International Cricket Stadium and enable them to put their first points on the board in the second edition of the ICC Test Championship.

By stumps, on an extraordinary fourth day’s play brought forward by bad light with 15.3 overs yet to be bowled, West Indies set a daunting target of 348 to win in four sessions were reeling at 52/6. They trail by 296 runs with four wickets in hand to avoid defeat in the two-Test series going into the fifth and final day today. At the wicket were Nkrumah Bonner (18) and Joshua Da Silva (15), thanks to whom the West Indies were spared the ignominy of being bowled out for their lowest Test total – 47, which seemed imminent at one stage when they slumped to 18/6.      

From the moment Ramesh Mendis trapped skipper Kraigg Brathwaite LBW for a duck in the fourth over, West Indies were pushed onto the back foot, a position from which they were never allowed to recover as the Lankan spinners Mendis and Lasith Embuldeniya ran amok.

On a turning and bouncing pitch, the West Indies batsmen found them too hot to handle and it exposed their lack of solid technique against spin to counter this kind of attack.

Following a disappointing performance on the third day, the Sri Lankan spinners came back to their own, sticking to a good line and length and making the ball talk, creating doubts in the minds of the hapless West Indies batsmen who had no answer to the balls that spun and whizzed past them. Mendis was unplayable, ending the day with figures of 4/17, while left-armer Lasith Embuldeniya took 2/18.

As in the first innings, Da Silva displayed a lot of patience and good technique. He not only held the innings together but tackled the spinners better than the rest of his teammates. To save his side from defeat, the odds are heavily stacked against him. In the first innings he scored a defiant 15* off 94 balls.

Sri Lanka made short work of the West Indies first innings when they resumed at 224/9 to dismiss them for 230 with Praveen Jayawickrama picking up his fourth wicket of the innings by trapping last man Shannon Gabriel LBW with a ball that landed full on his front boot. 

With a handy first innings lead of 156, Sri Lanka pressed for quick runs in their second innings and declared at 191/4 at the tea break.

Dimuth Karunaratne, surviving an LBW decision off Rahkeem Cornwall at 34 when the West Indies opted not to review a sweep shot that hit him on the front pad, went on to complete his second score of over 50 in the match. Replays showed the ball crashing into middle and leg stumps, and it was another review lost by West Indies in the match bringing their total to three.

Karunaratne’s innings of 83 off 104 balls (nine fours) saw him make his sixth successive score of over 50-plus in his last six Test innings – 75, 244, 118, 66, 147 and 83, one less than Kumar Sangakkara who scored seven in a row in 2014. Karunaratne has the second Test starting on Monday to equal the great man’s record or even go past him.

Following the cheap dismissals of Pathum Nissanka (3) and Oshada Fernando (14), Mathews joined Karunaratne in a third wicket stand of 123 to take the game away from West Indies. It was a welcome return to form for Mathews, having last crossed the 50-plus mark in January this year when he made 110 against England at Galle. Coming to the wicket at the fall of the second wicket at 39, he made his intentions quite clear, batting with a positive mindset to score an unbeaten 69* off 84 balls that included six fours and two monstrous sixes. West Indies found it hard to stem the flow of runs between Karunaratne and Mathews, the two most experienced batters in the side.

Karunaratne displaying endurance, technique, mental strength, and stamina missed out on a second century in the Test when he edged a catch to slip as he tried to run Cornwall down to third man – the extra bounce undoing him.

Play resumes today at 9:45 am.

Spectators were a welcome sight at the Galle International Cricket Stadium yesterday, the fourth day of the first cricket Test between Sri Lanka and West Indies