Mahela Jayawardene and Tillakaratne Dilshan pulverized New Zealand’s bowlers to help Sri Lanka make a spectacular start in the first cricket Test yesterday.
Jayawardene hit an unbeaten 108 and Dilshan smashed 92 off 72 balls in his new role as opener as Sri Lanka, sent in to bat under an overcast sky, recovered from 16-2 to 293-3 by stumps on a rain-curtailed opening day.
Jayawardene, who gave up the captaincy earlier this year to concentrate on his batting, achieved his 26th Test century on the easy-paced wicket at the Galle International Stadium.
PHOTO: AFP
Dilshan hit the fastest Test half-century by a Sri Lankan, off only 30 balls and upstaging former captain Arjuna Ranatunga’s 31-ball effort against India at Kanpur in 1986.
Jayawardene put on 118 for the third wicket with Dilshan and 159 for the undefeated fourth with Thilan Samaraweera (82 not out) after New Zealand seamer Chris Martin struck twice in his first two overs.
Martin gave the Test a dramatic start when he had Tharanga Paranavitana, Dilshan’s fellow opener, edging the third ball of the match to wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum.
Martin then removed Kumar Sangakkara for eight, the Sri Lankan captain flicking a half-volley to the mid-wicket fielder after hitting two boundaries in the same over.
The start of the Test was delayed by 90 minutes by early morning rain and the umpires pushed back the lunch break by an hour to make up for lost time.
Only 78 of the stipulated 90 overs were completed before bad light forced play to end early.
Dilshan, who has batted in the middle order in all of his previous 55 Tests, was promoted to open the innings in order to accommodate fit-again keeper Prasanna Jayawardene.
Opening the batting was the multi-faceted Dilshan’s latest role after he donned the wicket-keeping gloves in the recent three Test-series against Pakistan due to Prasanna’s knee injury.
“Now all that is left is for me to open the bowling,” the 32-year-old joked.
Seamer Iain O’Brien, who bore the brunt of Dilshan’s assault and conceded 55 runs in his first six overs, denied the batsman his ninth Test century by bowling him off the inside edge soon after lunch.
“I think we just did not bowl well enough,” Martin said. “There was a lot of debate on whether we should have batted first, but credit goes to the Sri Lankans for being so disciplined in their batting.”
The Black Caps will play two Tests, two Twenty20 internationals and a limited-overs tri-series also featuring India during the five-week tour.
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