Mendis, Karunaratne give Sri Lanka a strong start

England may have left New Zealand shores a few weeks ago, but the spirit of Bazball resided in Kusal Mendis’s batting. The No.3 batter counter-attacked against the home team’s pace bowlers for almost two hours in testing batting condition to dominate in an otherwise even opening day of play at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, on Thursday. The visitors, led by Mendis’s 87, went to stumps on 305 for 6.

Brief Scores:

Sri Lanka 305/6 (Kusal Mendis 87, Dimuth Karunaratne 50; Tim Southee 3-44, Matt Henry 2-65) vs New Zealand