COMEBACK HUNDRED FOR BAIRSTOW AS ENGLAND PUSH PAST 300
Jonny Bairstow marked his return to the Test Team with a century but Sri Lanka struck with four wickets to peg England back in the final session of the first day of the third Test at the SSC Grounds in Maitland Place yesterday. When the Umpires called an early end to play due to bad light, England were 312 for seven with Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid unbeaten on 23 and 13 respectively.
For the third straight Test, both teams were presented with a pitch that offered turn right from day one and
England continued to show proficiency against the Sri
Lankan spinners, though they lost the plot in the latter part of the day.
Still, despite losing those four wickets England piled up 115 runs in the evening session, their most productive period of play.
Achieving a moment of personal triumph Bairstow made no attempt to hide his emotions when he reached his century.
MOMENT OF CATHARSIS
He roared, raised both his hands and dropped his bat to the ground – a moment of catharsis perhaps – having missed the first two Tests of the series during which his absence was not entirely felt as England wrapped up the series.
During that absence he has seen his replacement excel, both with bat and keeping gloves, meaning his the only way back into the team, was by taking up the challenge of batting at number three, a position he had not featured in before for England. And if belting a boundary to the cover boundary on the first ball he faced was Bairstow making his intent known that he was ready for that challenge, he emphasised it seven overs later, when he struck consecutive boundaries off Lakshan Sandakan. His next boundary, nine balls later, was a sweep for six against Malinda Pushpakumara, before adding one more four against Dilruwan Perera shortly before the lunch break, by which time he had already reached 42 off 58 balls. Bairstow’s next 39 runs came off 75 balls, when England reached tea on 197 for three, having started a fresh partnership with Ben Stokes after Joe Root was dismissed for 46. Root’s dismissal ended England’s best partnership of the innings so far, of exactly 100, though Bairstow almost bettered it with Stokes, before the latter was caught at slip. Four balls before Stokes’ dismissal, Bairstow reached his century with a single off a sweep shot, a shot he used often in his innings. The same shot cost him his wicket 21 balls later. Sandakan, himself making a comeback having missed Sri Lanka’s last four Tests, brought with him the charms and curses that comes with being a wrist-spinner, taking the bulk of the wickets, understandably getting more assistance than the others, but also conceding the most runs per over.
He ended the day with figures of four for 91, though he may have completed a five-wicket haul had Sri Lanka not entertained some hiccups over the course of the day.
POOR JUDGEMENTS
A central figure in much of
Sri Lanka’s woes yesterday was wicket-keeper Niroshan Dickwella, who not only missed two key opportunities but also made poor judgments in influencing the use of Sri Lanka’s two reviews, so much so that the hosts had none left 22 overs of the day.
Having had an appeal for caught behind turned down in the 15th over, Sri Lanka Captain Suranga Lakmal, after consulting Dickwella, chose to review but replays showed no deflection off the bat on the way to the keeper.
When Root was struck on the pad attempting to cut seven overs later, Dickwella was again consulted, and after thinking about it for almost the full 15 seconds available to him, Lakmal chose to review again.
Replays showed the ball to have hit the batsman’s pad outside off-stump.
The lost reviews proved costly as Umpire Sundaram Ravi twice turned down appeals that would have been overturned had Sri Lanka been able to challenge them.
Dickwella’s name was also associated with some of his team’s missed opportunities as well, having failed to pick the sharp turn of Sandakan to effect a stumping, in between the review blunders and then dropping Moeen Ali, who had scored two runs of his unbeaten innings.
Dimuth Karunaratne was also guilty of dropping an easy catch when he put down an easy catch at slip, giving Ali a second reprieve.
Not unlike the first two Tests, Sri Lanka made early breakthroughs removing both openers within 11 overs of play.
England lost Root in the middle session, before four wickets in the third session meant that Sri Lanka ended the first day with some respectability.