West Indies openers make good start v Sri Lanka
November 15, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
GALLE: Chris Gayle and Adrian Barath posted only the second century opening partnership for West Indies in the last four years to give the visitors a solid start in the first cricket test against Sri Lanka on Monday.
The pair put on 110 runs after Darren Sammy had won the toss on his debut as test captain and decided to bat first on a flat track.
Despite being beaten occasionally by new ball bowlers Thilan Thushara and Dammika Prasad, the opening pair mixed caution with bouts of aggression to run up the century stand in the 23rd over.
Gayle, playing rather circumspectly, reached his half-century off 61 balls by slog-sweeping spinner Suraj Randiv for his eighth four. He also had two sixes in his knock.
Barath, who was dropped at 35 by Randiv off a head-high return catch, followed his senior partner by bringing up his half-century off 82 balls, also
India Vs Sri Lanka, 2nd Test begins tomorrow at Kanpur
After a high scoring draw at Ahmedabad, India and Sri Lanka have moved onto Green Park in Kanpur for the second Test which begins tomorrow. Batsmen on both sides have ran into form and the onus now lies on the bowlers to take 20 wickets atleast this time. Harbhajan Singh and Muttiah Muralitharan could be feeling most of the heat in this Kanpur Test after a below par results at Ahmedabad.
The Green Park in Kanpur in general has been a batting paradise but every now and then the Curator had to come up with pitches that are tailor made to suit India. A turning track this time could prove to be a problem for India as they are up against Sri Lanka which has three world class spinners in Murali, Herath and Mendis. The pitch is already talked of taking turn from the third day or so. What it would need is better pace and bounce compared to the one at Ahmedabad so that the batsmen have lesser time to adjust when they do not pick the variations off the bowlers’ hands.
Toss will play a crucial factor in this Test and it is important that the team batting first has to make most by piling up the big scores and control the game thereafter. Sri Lanka are going to make one change atleast with fast bowler Dammika Prasad breaking down with a hamstring injury. The replacements for him could be Dilhara Fernando or Nuwan Kulasekara. There is enough pressure on Sangakkara to bring in Ajantha Mendis and there are only two ways to go about it – Sri Lanka play with just one pacer in Chanaka Welegedara and have three spinners or the other way is to drop Rangana Herath and replace him with Mendis.
The homeside could remain unchanged because of the nature of the wicket. Amit Mishra could still be retained despite a rank bad show in the first Test. Ideally India should bank on a pace attack against Sri Lanka and have Sreesanth to add fire along with Zaheer and Ishant. The Sri Lankan batsmen have shown that they are not so good at handling the short pitch stuff and at the same time have proved that they can toy with the spinners even in their sleep.
Live Scores along with Ball by Ball Commentary of this 2nd Test at Kanpur can be followed at www.cricketmove.com.
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India Vs Sri Lanka, 2nd Test begins tomorrow at Kanpur was first posted on November 24, 2009 at 12:02 am.
Ind vs Sri live score
Hosts India finished the opening day’s play of the first Test at Ahmedabad at an incredible 385 for 6 after being reduced to a disastrous 32 for 4 within the first hour of the match. Rahul Dravid proved his class yet again when the chips were down and partnered with Yuvraj Singh and Skipper MS Dhoni to steer India out of trouble. ‘The Wall’ – Rahul Dravid remained unfinished on 177 and MS Dhoni played a Captain’s knock to come up with his second Test hundred. Dravid also became the fifth player to cross 11,000 test runs during his big hundred.
MS Dhoni won the crucial toss which gave his team the opportunity to bat first on a good wicket. India stuck with a predictable line-up of seven batsman and four bowlers. Sreesanth had to sit out. Sri Lanka came up with some surprises with Nuwan Kulasekara and Thilan Thushara missing out. Chanadaka Welegedara and Dammika Prasad got selected ahead of them. But the biggest decision was to drop Ajantha Mendis and retain left arm spinner Rangana Herath.
Sri Lanka had a dream start in rattling the Indian top order with left armer Chanaka Welegedara swinging the ball both ways to make inroads. The 28-year-old Welegedera got an unsure Gambhir inside edging onto the stumps and then followed up with a late inswinger to trap Sehwag lbw. Three balls after Sehwag’s fall, Sachin Tendulkar got cleaned up by one that nipped back sharply to knock his off stump bail through the gate. And six balls later, VVS Laxman too disappeared to the dressing room after chopping a drive off Dammika Prasad onto his stumps. India were out of the Test Match it seemed with the score tottering at 32 for 4 in the 8th over. They were in the danger of getting bowled out very cheaply like before against South Africa at this same venue when they could put up just 76.
Fortunately for India, the most important batsman survived the early blows and it was none other than Rahul Dravid. Yuvraj Singh walked into the middle in a situation that wasn’t new for him. The left hander had already featured in a rear-guard action against Pakistan along with Sourav Ganguly when India faced the same kind of pressure. Yuvraj replicated the same fightback and along with India saw through the difficult first session. At Lunch, India had started to claw back steadily at 105 for 4 in 25 overs with Dravid on 45 and Yuvraj on 35.
After lunch, Dravid and Yuvraj eases past their fifties but their partnership was broken when the latter lobbed a simple catch to covers off Murali against the run of play. Yuvraj fell in the 37th over having scored 68 (from 93 balls with 13 fours). The left hander put on 125 runs for the 5th wicket with Dravid. Sri Lanka now had got back the chance of dismissing India inside the 220-mark. But that wasn’t the case with Skipper MS Dhoni continuing Yuvraj’s good work and giving the right kind of support to Dravid. India went into Tea smoothly without any further damage to 221 for 5 in 54 overs. Dravid was just two runs short of his century and Dhoni worked his way to nearly 30.
The final session was a repeat of the previous one with Dravid putting up another big partnership. The Sri Lankan spinners – Muralitharan and Herath failed to get any purchase off the wicket and that left the Indian pair to dominate them with ease. After an hour’s play, India was out of trouble completely at 299 for 5 in 70 overs with the bowlers getting tired totally. MS Dhoni got to his second Test match hundred but fell just moments before the close of play when he edged a cut shot off the second new ball to the keeper from the expensive Dammika Prasad. Dhoni got out scoring a well-paced 110 from 159 balls (with 10 fours and a six) and his partnership with Dravid was worth 224 runs!
India finished Day 1 safely at 385 for 6 with Dravid still holding fort and Harbhajan Singh batting out the last few balls quite sensibly. Dravid’s unbeaten 177 took just the 251 balls and was filled with 26 fours and a six over long on off Herath. Welegedara, who did all the damage in the first session had to settle with figures of 3 for 75 in 17 overs. Muralitharan and Herath who were expected to wrap up the Indian innings after Welegedara’s blows came a cropper.
Ind vs Sri live score was first posted on November 17, 2009 at 12:43 pm.
Pakistan Win Toss and Bat Against SL in Final ODI
COLOMBO: Pakistan skipper Younis Khan won the toss and elected to bat first in of the fifth ODI against Sri Lanka at the Premadasa Stadium here on Sunday.
Pakistan are unchanged for the game. Sri Lanka have made three changes as Jayasuriya, Dammika Prasad and Nuwan Kulasekara were included in the squad.
Teams:
Pakistan: Kamran Akmal†, Imran Nazir, Younis Khan*, Mohammad Yousuf, Umar Akmal, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi, Naved-ul-Hasan, Mohammad Aamer, Iftikhar Anjum, Saeed Ajmal
Sri Lanka: WU Tharanga, ST Jayasuriya, KC Sangakkara*†, DPMD Jayawardene, CK Kapugedera, SHT Kandamby, AD Mathews, KTGD Prasad, KMDN Kulasekara, CM Bandara, BAW Mendis
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Pakistan Win Toss and Bat Against SL in Final ODI
Pakistan Vs Sri Lanka Final ODI Today
COLOMBO: The final match of the five one day matches series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be played today at Premadasa cricket stadium here.
Pakistan will likely to recall Fawad Alam to replace out of form Misbah-ul-Haq.
Intikhab Alam, Pakistan’s coach, said the wonderful partnership between Umar and captain Younis Khan gave a lot of confidence to the team for the final ODI and the Twenty20.
Excerpt from:
Pakistan Vs Sri Lanka Final ODI Today
