Sri Lanka complete another day of domination by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

---

Ground:	Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo
Scorecard:	Sri Lanka v New Zealand
Player:	KC Sangakkara, HMRKB Herath, M Muralitharan
Event:	New Zealand in Sri Lanka 2009

---

DateLine: 28th August 2009

 

It was again a hard day for the New Zealanders as Sri Lanka took complete control off the Test. The Lankan bowlers did not take long to take out the remaining wickets and then led by Sangakkara surged ahead to put themselves in a comfortable position to dictate terms in the Test. Sri Lanka at close were 157 for the loss off two wickets with a lead 339 runs.

 

The day did not begin well for the visitors as New Zealand lost Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor in the first 40 minutes. The Lankan spinners were more threatening than the Kiwi spinners as both the overnight batsmen were looked quite uncomfortable against the spinners. Muralitharan settled into bowling a very attacking line while Herath opted for more variety.

 

Both the batsmen survived early scares as McCullum was dropped on 13 twice in one over as Paranavitana and Samaraweera were the guilty fielders. In the next over Harper turned down a convincing appeal for lbw when Taylor missed a sweep. McCullum’s luck ran-out when he edged a doosra from Muralitharan to Mahela Jayawardene who took his 150th catch in Tests. Taylor added 11 to his overnight score in 37 deliveries and he fell for 81 when Herath lured him into a prod and drew an edge to an alert Prasanna Jayawardene. Vettori played well for 23 in a stand of 43 with Oram before he was removed by Dilshan. Fourteen deliveries later Herath sent back Oram, who tried to go for the reverse-sweep, but in the end only lob it to short-leg for Kapugedera to take a easy catch. Once the last wicket, in the form of O’Brien fell, Sri Lanka had taken full control off the Test.

 

Opener Paranavitana was watchful as runs from his side almost dried up while Dilshan did much of the scoring in singles and doubles. Vettori's introduction into the attack applied screws on the run-rate as the Lankan openers could not get the boundaries.

 

Dilshan after playing from the crease for quite some-time danced down the ground to try and loft Patel out off the ground but could only send it to Guptill at long-on. Kumar Sangakkara and Paranavitana then proceeded to build the lead sensibly. Paranavitana looked set for his first substantial innings of the series but was unlucky to be ruled out caught behind by Harper when he clearly missed a sweep down the pads.

 

After the tea interval, Sangakkara and Jayawardene went about consolidating their team’s position as they piled on more agony on the Kiwi bowlers. Sangakkara, after tea interval began to up his tempo as he found the boundaries regularly. The pair added 68 runs in 16.2 overs when the heavens opened and it rained so hard that further play was not possible.