Sri Lanka v West Indies, Day Two: WI lose openers as they chase mammoth SL total
West Indies lost both their openers as they chase down the mammoth total set by Sri Lanka in their first innings. Sri Lanka were propelled to a score of 484 in the first innings, thanks to a double century partnership between Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal.
The 238-run stand between the Sri Lankan batsmen was the highest third wicket partnership in a Sri Lanka v West Indies match beating the previously held record of 162 by Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara in 2001.
Both the batsmen started the day where they left off at the end of Day One and piled misery on the West Indian bowlers. They added 89 more runs to their partnership before Karunaratne lobbed one straight back to the bowler after a fine innings of 186.
Chandimal went on to score 151, which included an 86-run partnership with the captain Angelo Mathews. This was the second big score that Chandimal scored, after the unbeaten 162 he scored against India in August 2015.
Chandimal's wicket triggered a batting collapse for the hosts as they lost the last seven wickets for 59 runs. Bishoo picked up three of those wickets.
Besides the centurions, only Mathews came up with a decent score of 48 runs. The debutant Milinda Siriwardana scored only 1 run.
In reply, the West Indies openers showed potential in scoring at a brisk pace scoring at over four runs per over, until Kraigg Braithwaite fell leg before off the bowling of Rangana Herath.
Herath struck once again and left the West Indies middle order with a lot to do when he bowled out Shai Hope for 23. Darren Bravo and Marlon Samuels survived the day helping West Indies to 66-2 at the end of the day.
West Indies will be relieved by the fact that they have their more experienced pair at the crease in Bravo and Samuels. Bravo and Samuels, both have six and seven centuries to their names respectively. The West Indies camp will be hoping that both of them can get some big scores and pose a challenge to the hosts.
The West Indies batsmen will be wary of the threat that Herath poses. The Sri Lankan left-arm spinner bowled in the right areas in his eight overs and troubled the batsmen. If Samuels and Bravo can manage to get settled in early tomorrow, the West Indies will stand a chance in this Test.
Brief Scores:
Sri Lanka 484 all out (Karunaratne 186, Chandimal 151, Mathews 48; Bishoo 4-143, Taylor 2-65)
West Indies 66-2 (Hope 23, Braithwaite 19; Herath 2-14)