Dinner Sri Lanka 174 for 3 (Karunaratne 89*, Chandimal 14*, Yasir 2-75) v Pakistan
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Mohammad Amir swung the new ball, and Wahab Riaz was intense in his first spell, but it was a half-tracker from Yasir Shah that produced Pakistan’s only breakthrough of the first session, while Sri Lanka made a strong start.
As has often been the case throughout the year, Dimuth Karunaratne was the driving force behind Sri Lanka’s early progress. He had his edge repeatedly beaten by Amir early on, but survived that period to move to 52 unbeaten, by tea.
Alongside him was debutant Sadeera Samarawickrama, who seemed composed as he faced his first 13 balls in Test cricket. On what appeared to be a faster track and a quicker outfield than Abu Dhabi had produced, Sri Lanka were 96 for 1 at the break. They had, for the second Test running, won the toss and batted first.
Though Amir was impressive with the shiny, pink ball, he did not persist for long enough outside off stump to gain full benefit from the movement he was producing. His first over – a maiden to Karunaratne – was excellent, but thereafter, the unplayable deliveries were strewn between wayward balls on the pads. Rarely does Karunaratne miss the chance to make runs on the leg side. In Amir’s third over, he gleefully flicked two balls to the square leg fence – the first boundaries of the innings.
Kaushal was the slower starter of the two, as ever, and was occasionally even guilty of being too watchful. A full toss in Yasir’s first over, for example, was tapped tamely into the leg side. As Karunaratne went at a strike rate of about 50, Silva had made only 14 runs from his first 53 balls.
Eventually, positivity began to enter his game, once as he cracked a Yasir long hop to the midwicket boundary, and another time as he came down the track to loft him over mid-on. But Yasir, nonetheless, seemed to have a hold over Silva. With roughly 20 minutes left in the session, Silva attempted to pull a short, slow Yasir delivery that he would have been better off cutting. Sarfraz Ahmed stayed low to complete a difficult take, off the under-edge of the bat, and Pakistan finally had some joy.
Karunaratne’s scoring, however, was unaffected by the wicket, as he struck three fours off Amir late in the session, a beautiful aerial flick over midwicket among those strokes. He moved past fifty with his eighth four of the innings. In the final over before lunch, Samarawickrama managed his first international boundary – a thick outside edge that skidded to the boundary behind backward point.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo