Herath leads Sri Lanka’s crushing win over B’desh

GALLE (SRI LANKA): Rangana Herath grabbed six wickets in the second innings to become Test cricket’s most successful left-arm spinner as Sri Lanka defeated Bangladesh by 259 runs in their first Test at Galle on Sunday.

Herath finished with 6-59, his 23rd five or more wicket haul, which took his tally in Tests to 366 wickets, going past New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori, who has 362 wickets to his name. His exploits helped Sri Lanka dismiss Bangladesh for 197 runs in the second innings in less than two sessions on the fifth day after the visitors resumed play promisingly on 67-0.

Herath claimed four of the last five wickets that fell in the post-lunch session as Bangladesh were folded in 60.2 overs to hand Sri Lanka a 1-0 lead in the two-test series.

Off-spinner Dilruwan Perera claimed two wickets in the morning to trigger the collapse in Bangladesh innings.

Bangladesh lost overnight batsman Soumya Sarkar in the second ball of the morning and failed to regroup.

Perera then struck in successive overs, picking the wickets of Mominul Haque and Tamim Iqbal. Herath delivered further blows when he removed Shakib Al Hasan for eight and handed Mahmudullah a second-ball duck in a space of three balls in one over.

Mushfiqur Rahim and wicketkeeper-batsman Liton Das put 54 runs for the sixth wicket but Sri Lanka wrapped the innings quickly once left-arm spinner Lakshan Sandakan broke the stand.