The host Sri Lanka is building a mountain of runs with the centuries of Dimuth Karunaratne and Kushal Mendis going to bat at the beginning of the first test of the two-match series held in Galle. At the end of the first day, the Lankans scored 386 runs, losing 4 wickets. The team will come out to bat again in the second day’s game.
At the beginning of the match Sri Lankan captain Dimuth Karunaratne decided to bat after winning the toss. The hosts got off to a good start. 63 runs came from the opening pair. Nishan Madhuska scored 29 runs from 48 balls. He gave a catch to Lorcan Tucker off Kurtis Camphere.
Kushal Mendis came to bat for the second wicket. Team leader and opener Dimuth Karunaratne started ruling the Irish bowlers with him. At this time, the two made a pair of 281 runs. Both these batsmen saw centuries. Kushal Mendis was dismissed for 140 off 193 balls. Angelo Mathews could not open the account of runs by going down to the next wicket.
After completing a century and a half, Dimuth Karunarakne was moving towards a double century. But he stopped at 179 runs. He was cut behind because of Mark Adair. His 235-ball innings was decorated with 18 fours. At the end of the day, Chandimal remained unbeaten on 18 runs and Jayasuriya on 12 runs.
Mark, Adair, Kurtis Kampfer, George Dockrell and Ben White got one wicket each for Ireland in the first day’s play.
(April 16/MM)