Sri Lanka Vs West Indies 1st Test Galle - SL Report Card

Mendis caused few problems to the Windies
© Associated Press

   The Islanders returning from a successful tour down-under undoubtedly go into a home series with high expectations. Rangana Herath misses out, Mendis making yet another come back which meant  Suraj Randiv continues as Sri Lanka's spin based attack now looking a lot humane. Batting nevertheless, full strength with home conditions to boost their level of confidence. A look at the Windies report card for the match over here.

Tharanga Paranavitana - 7
Played poorly in the first innings. Out after playing 53 balls for 10, second innnigs though he missed out on a well deserved century.

Tillakaratne Dilshan - 6
Out for a duck in the first innings to debutant Russell, looked lot better in the second innings with a hundred run stand for the opening wicket with Paranavitana.

Kumar Sangakkara - 6©
King Kumar had a quite game. Mainly due to watching Gayle take the game away in the first two days of play. His batting however, looked solid in the first innings. In the second innings  Roach did him in. Playing just two seamers in Thushara and Prasad, should have used more of Mathews as the third seamer and perhaps Dilshan to test of Gayle.

Mahela Jayawardene - 7
Twin fifties in the match. Made sure the game dint go out of hand at any point. Definitely needed to score big and bail out the team when it needed the most. But, the rain helped them out.

Thilan Samraweera - 6
Yet another fifty for Samaraweera in Sri Lanka. The man relishes playing under home conditions. That run-out seemed to be the only way he could have been dismissed. Unfortunately, dint help his team avoid the follow-on.

Angelo Mathews - 5
Did not get much to bowl watching the Gayle was going. Batting cant say much either. Was merely playing a waiting game, trying to get Sri Lanka out of the woods. Got out and the tail was left to fight out to avoid the follow-on.

Prasanna Jayawardene - 6
Sri Lanka's man for the job behind the wickets in test matches. He did well with the bat in the first innings helping the team reach 378 miserly close to avoiding the follow-on.

Suraj Randiv - 4.5
3 wickets to his name. Dismissed Chanderpaul when he was looking to settle in his game. Got the stick treatment from Gayle. With Mendis faring better, and Herath round the corner he will need to improve his performance given he plays.

Dammika Prasad - 3
The seamers lacked soul in their performance. Without Malinga, the seam attack looked spineless. However, Sri Lanka does have some names in Kulasekara and Fernando who will be in the running for the next test. Hopefully, perform better for the team in the absence of Malinga.

Ajantha Mendis - 7
At one point when all seemed to be one-way traffic. Mendis picked up wickets and brought Sri Lanka back into the game. Picked up 6 wickets in the Windies innings at an average of 28.17 perhaps light at the end of the tunnel for the islanders.

Thilan Thushara - 3
Nothing new to be said about his match performance. Went wicketless, could reap results for the team and his captain with the new ball or the old one.

   So, thanks to a merciless innings from Gayle, contributions from the rest of the Windies batting helped them post a huge first innings score of 580. In reply, Lankans missed the fact that none of their set batsmen were able to score big and bail them out. Missing the follow-on mark by 2 runs meant, Sammy asking them to bat again. With rain eating up some playing time the home team made sure the test had no ultimate winner.

   First test clearly heavy on the bowlers with 1199 runs being scored for the loss of 24 wickets in 340 overs bowled. Should be interesting to see how things move from Galle test to the Premadasa in Colombo for the second test.