Sri Lanka in control at SSC

Sri Lanka finished off the opening day of the one off Test match against Afghanistan reaching 80 for no loss and are trailing by 118 runs in Colombo on Friday. They had earlier bowled out Afghanistan for 198 having inserted the opposition after winning the toss.

New captain Dhananjaya de Silva had promised to play an attacking brand of cricket before assuming duties and true to form with aggressive field settings he tested the opposition batsman.

When it was Sri Lanka’s chance to bat, opening batters Dimuth Karunaratne and Nishan Madushka scored at 5.71 runs an over making their intentions clear.

Sri Lanka’s decision to bowl first surprised a few as Sinhalese Sports Club ground traditionally favours batting and captains tend to bat first although there’s something for the fast bowlers in the first half hour.

Despite dismissing Ibrahim Zadran for a second ball duck, the seamers’ performance in the morning session was lackluster as they did not create enough opportunities.

However, after lunch, both Asitha Fernando and Vishwa Fernando were on the money. They shared seven wickets between them in the innings,

Vishwa, the left-arm seamer, troubled the batsmen with sideways movement finishing with four wickets while Asitha, the right-arm medium pacer, bowled at a decent pace and ended with three wickets.

Left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya backed them up well finishing with three wickets.

Experienced seamer Kasun Rajitha was snubbed as Sri Lanka picked Chamika Gunasekara ahead of him. However, the debutant failed to make an impact and his nine overs cost 50 runs without producing a wicket.

Rahmat Shah scored the only half-century in the Afghanistan innings. The 30-year-old, who has played all Afghanistan’s eight Tests was solid in defence and cut loose when bad balls were on offer as he hit 13 boundaries during his knock of 91. It was his fourth half-century.

Rahmat deserved a hundred having hardly put a foot wrong during his knock but some terrific work by wicketkeeper Sadeera Samarawickrama ended his innings.

The batsman was attempting to paddle sweep a ball that had pitched on off-stump and Samarawickrama sensed it as Rahmat went down on one foot and moved to his left and held onto a terrific one handed low catch.

Afghanistan lost their last six wickets for 43 runs as there was not much resistance from the lower order. The last two wickets were picked up by Asitha Fernando in the space of three deliveries.Only 76.4 overs of the scheduled 90 were bowled and the two teams could be penalized by the Match Referee for slow over rates.