WI vs SL News

After sealing victories in back-to-back matches against the Netherlands and England, Sri Lanka ended up losing all the rest of the matches against Bangladesh, Afghanistan, India, and New Zealand.

Madushka and Asalanka's half-centuries powered Sri Lanka to victory against West Indies. Despite Gudakesh Motie's three wickets and Sherfane Rutherford's unbeaten 74, Sri Lanka won by six wickets, taking a 1-0 lead in the ODI series.

Left hanging on 99 overnight, West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite completed his ninth Test century to place his team in a strong position at stumps on the second day of the second Test against Sri Lanka. Brathwaite needed only two balls at the start of the day to reach his first century since July 2018. Brathwaite was the 16th player in test history to be stranded on 99 overnight and he maintained a streak as all 16 have been converted into hundreds. Brathwaite's 103-run eighth-wicket partnership with Rahkeem Cornwall helped the West Indies to 354 as it batted first after losing the toss. At stumps, Sri Lanka was 136-3, 218 runs behind. We take a look at best of the action from the second day's play of the second Test between Sri Lanka and West Indies.

West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite led from the front on Monday (March 29) as he scored an unbeaten 99 to help the West Indies to 287/7 at close on the first day of the second Test against Sri Lanka. An unbeaten 65-run partnership with Rahkeem Cornwall handed the impetus to the hosts after the battle between the two teams had see-sawed through the day. We take a look at a rollercoaster opening day through these collection of pictures.

Bonner has been very consistent since his Test debut in the historic series win in Bangladesh last month. On debut in Chattogram he made 17 and 86 and followed up with 90 and 38 in the second match in Dhaka. The two teams will now prepare for the second Test match which starts on Monday at the same venue.

The West Indies did get the day off to a perfect start as Alzarri Joseph castled Dhananjaya de Silva with the fifth ball of the morning, but not before De Silva had gone to his half century with a boundary. The Windies had to wait for more than 50 overs for their next wicket as Nissanka holed out for 103 and Dickwella followed seven overs later, bowled by Kemar Roach agonisingly close to his milestone. Sri Lanka’s last three wickets fell for six runs to the relief of an exhausted home team, who spent almost two full days in the field.

Brathwaite brilliantly ran out Oshada Fernando for 4 and Holder claimed his first wicket when he dismissed Dinesh Chandimal (4) to leave Sri Lanka 54/3 at lunch. Opener Lahiru Thirimanne and wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella combined in a partnership of 58 for the sixth wicket which lifted the tourists to 150/6. Thirimanne’s battling innings gave some strength to Sri Lanka’s struggling top and middle order.

Bravo’s 132-ball 102 also saw him register 3,000 ODI runs in the process. Hope, however, remained a constant, going on to register his sixth consecutive ODI score of over 50 or more – the 10thman to do so, with only Javed Miandad (9) having scored more. Batting first, Hasaranga and Ashen Bandara earlier in the day helped Sri Lanka recover and post a competitive total in an unbeaten 123-run seventh-wicket stand.

The Marylebone Cricket Club, guardians of the Laws of cricket, said: "The key part of the obstructing the field Law (37.2/37.3) is intent – which can be hard to judge. If the obstruction is wilful, it will be out, but if it's accidental then it will be not out." The Sri Lanka innings lost its way from that point and from 112/2, the visitors were bundled out for 232 in 49 overs. Sri Lanka’s director of cricket and former Australian all-rounder Tom Moody slammed the decision to send back Gunathilaka.

Allen hit 21 runs from six balls and also took 1-13 from four overs to earn player-of-the-match honors. The match was another low-scoring chapter in a low-scoring series in which all three matches were played on spin-friendly pitches at Coolidge. For the third time in a row, Sri Lanka chose to bat on winning the toss on Sunday.

The first Indian to achieve the record of hammering six sixes in an over belongs to current Team India head coach Ravi Shastri. The former India all-rounder belted Baroda left-arm spinner Tilak Raj in another record-breaking knock back in 1985. Yuvraj and Gibbs remains the only two batsmen to achieve the feat in international cricket apart from Pollard.

Pollard, who was dismissed for 38 off 11 balls, exploded in the sixth over hammering the first ball over long-on and then deposited Dananjaya into the sightscreen off the second ball. Pollard joined Yuvraj and South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs as the only batsmen to achieve this feat in an international game with Gibbs’s mark coming in a 2007 World Cup against Netherlands. It was a rapid turn of fortune for the Sri Lankan spinner Dananjaya, who in the previous over had just snared a hat-trick – dismissing opener Evin Lewis, Gayle and wicketkeeper-batsman Nicholas Pooran in the fourth over of the innings.