Yasir shakes up Sri lanka in deciding test

PALLEKELE (Sri Lanka): Pakistan’s prolific leg-spinner Yasir Shah (pic) grabbed three wickets to slow Sri Lanka’s progress on the opening day of the decisive third and final Test in Pallekele.

The hosts, who had raced to 85 for one by lunch after being sent in to bat, suffered a top order collapse engineered by Yasir and went to tea on a shaky 153-4 yesterday.

Opener Dimuth Karunaratne held the innings together with an unbeaten 70, his second consecutive half-century in the series. Jehan Mubarak was on nine.

Pakistan, winning the toss for the third time in a row, secured an early break with the wicket of Kaushal Silva, who had scored 125 in the first Test in Galle and 80 in the second in Colombo.

Silva made nine when he was caught behind off left-arm seamer Rahat Ali, who was picked alongside Ehsan Ali and Imran Khan in a newlook pace attack for the decider.

Pakistan had won the first Test by 10 wickets and Sri Lanka responded with a seven-wicket victory in the second match.

The left-handed pair of Karunaratne and Upul Tharanga put on 91 for the second wicket on either side of lunch to lift the score to 106 for one, before three wickets fell for 31 runs.

Tharanga, who replaced Kumar Sangakkara for the match, made 46 when he edged Yasir to slip where an alert Younis Khan took a smart catch diving in front.

Lahiru Thirimanne (11) and skipper Angelo Mathews (three) fell in successive overs from Yasir, mistiming drives to substitute fielder Babar Azam as Sri Lanka slipped to 137-4.

The wicket of the Sri Lankan captain was Yasir’s 20th in the series, enabling Pakistan to come back strongly despite conditions favouring the batsmen on the evenlypitch.

Both sides reshuffled their packs with four changes each in a bid to break the 1-1 series deadlock. — AFP