Sports News | Sri Lanka 68-2 at Lunch on Day 1 of 1st Test Vs Australia
Get latest articles and stories on Sports at LatestLY. Australian fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Mitchel Starc took a wicket each while the spin bowlers kept the batsmen guessing as Sri Lanka scrambled to 68 for two at lunch on the opening day of the first cricket test on Wednesday.
Galle, Sri Lanka, Jun 29 (AP) Australian fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Mitchel Starc took a wicket each while the spin bowlers kept the batsmen guessing as Sri Lanka scrambled to 68 for two at lunch on the opening day of the first cricket test on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne and Pathum Nissanka opened the batting and added 38 runs for the first wicket after electing to bat first.
Cummins forced an edge off Nissanka (23) with a rising delivery to wicketkeeper Alex Carey and four runs later Starc had No. 3 batsman Kusal Mendis (3) driving far from his body for an edge to Carey.
Karunaratne was batting on 25 with Angelo Mathews on 15 at the break. Cummins had bowling figures of 1-12 while Starc had 1-24.
Though wicketless, Australian spinners kept threatening, especially offspinner Nathan Lyon using a cross sea breeze to good effect to get drift and sharp turn and bounce off the pitch. His first delivery of the innings drifted toward left-handed Karunaratne's leg stump, turned sharply past off stump and bounced to hit Carey on the face.
The home team named three-spin bowlers for the match including leg spinner Jeffrey Vandersay for his test debut. The 32-year-old has taken 25 wickets in 19 one-day internationals and seven wickets in 14 Twenty20 internationals for Sri Lanka.
Left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya and offspinner Ramesh Mendis, along with Vandersay, will add variety to the spin attack.
Sri Lanka is fielding a strong batting lineup with seven specialist batsmen. Asitha Fernando will be the sole seam bowler in the team with the option of calling up allrounder Mathews to bowl a few overs of seam if needed.
Lyon, with 427 wickets in 108 matches, leads the Australian spin attack with Mitchell Swepson supporting him. The tourists have the option of using Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith who are handy leg-spin bowlers.
The series in being played for the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy named after the two top bowlers in test history with 1,508 test wickets combined. This is the first series for the trophy after Australian great Shane Warne died in March from a heart attack while vacationing in Thailand.
A brief remembrance was held for Warne before the match.
The Australian leg spinner who took 708 test wickets behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan's 800, took his 500th test wicket at this ground in 2004 and later helped rebuild the ground after it was destroyed by the Asian tsunami later that year. AP
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