An illness-depleted New Zealand were bamboozled in the face of pace and spin as Sri Lanka cruised to a 202-run victory in the first Test yesterday to lead the two-match series.
The Kiwis, set an improbable target of 413 runs, collapsed to 210 all out in their second innings before tea on the fifth and final day at the Galle International Stadium.
Off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan claimed 3-88 to take his world record tally to 777 wickets, while left-arm seamer Thilan Thushara and spinner Ajantha Mendis picked up two scalps each.
PHOTO: AP
The tourists, who had 13 of their 15 players affected by a stomach bug and viral fever, had been left hoping the weather might do them a favor — only for clear skies to break over the coastal town for the first time since the Test began.
Skipper Daniel Vettori battled bravely for two-and-a-half hours to make 67, his 20th Test fifty, sparking a brief resistance by the lower order after the Kiwis were reduced to 86-5.
Jesse Ryder, one of the players worst affected by the virus, defended for almost an hour to add 48 for the sixth wicket with his captain before he was caught behind off Muralitharan for 22 soon after lunch.
Jeetan Patel hit 22 and Brendon McCullum, who was confined to bed on Friday because of fever, made 29 before he was last man to be dismissed, a run-out victim of a direct throw from Muralitharan.
Wicket-keeper Prasanna Jayawardene, returning to the side after missing the previous series against Pakistan with a knee injury, chipped in with three catches and a stumping.
New Zealand added seven runs to their overnight score of 30-1 when Thushara bowled Martin Guptill with a superb ball that moved after pitching and clipped the off-stump. The batsman made 18.
Tim McIntosh, top-scorer in the first innings with 69, but who could not open on Friday evening because of fever, batted for 14 minutes without scoring when he edged a Thushara outswinger.
Thilan Samaraweera picked up a low catch at third slip that was referred to the third umpire before the umpires gave the batsman out.
Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara surprisingly handed the ball to part-time spinner Mahela Jayawardene and the former captain struck with his second delivery to claim only his sixth wicket in 106 Tests.
Ross Taylor, who looked solid making 16, played at a ball down the leg-side and nudged a catch to the wicketkeeper to reduce New Zealand to 45-4 within the first hour.
Jacob Oram and Vettori put on 41 for the fifth wicket, but Mendis ended the defiant stand by having Oram leg-before for 21.
The second and final Test will be played at the Sinhalese sports club in Colombo beginning on Wednesday.
New Zealand will also play two Twenty20 internationals against Sri Lanka and a limited-overs tri-series with India as the third team.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier