Angelow Mathews should have introduced Milinda Siriwardana when Brendon McCullum was in his 30s and looked threatening.
Milinda is such an effective cricketer that he is habituated to deliver the goods when his team is needed the most. Mathews threw him the ball when Baz had put New Zealand in a very strong position, but the escalating scoring rate halted when Milinda dismissed Baz by pitching a ball on a half-volley length along the leg stump line!
Milinda is becoming the man with the golden arm
for Sri Lanka.
As soon as Baz was dismissed, the wickets kept on tumbling for the Kiwis but the kind of start they had, it seemed that they would end up something around 450 plus at stumps. Mathews
put the hosts to bat on a greenish Dunedin track, but the Lankan new ball bowlers wasted the opportunity by not pitching the ball full around the middle-and-off-stump line, but they banged the ball more on the half-volley length, short-and-wide outside off and along the leg stump line – at one stage each
over fetched boundaries which almost made this Test match into a Twenty20 circus show.
Thankfully, the Lankan bowlers bounced back to make the day evenly poised.
Dushmanta Chameera was costly, but I was amazed by his never-say-die spirit and he was in no mood to sacrifice his pace. His action needs a bit of modification: the head position just needs to be adjusted a bit. He has the ability to hit that difficult length: the dismissal of BJ Watling says it all and a bit more discipline will make him a very good product.
Again, on this track, bowling with a scrambled seam worked better.
Martin Guptill played a brilliant knock his third Test hundred, his first in 40 innings since November 2011 while yet again, Kane Willaimson is among the
runs. This guy is an all-time best package. He is my favorite batsman along with Hashim Amla, Virat Kohli, Mushfiqur Rahim, Steve Smith and AB De Villiers.
Sri Lanka needs to exhibit resolve rather than aggression on this track while batting.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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