Sri Lanka in control despite Moor, Cremer fifties

Tea Zimbabwe 291 for 7 (Cremer 62*, Tiripano 9*) trail Sri Lanka 537 (Tharanga 110*, Perera 110) by 246 runsLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Peter Moor put his wicketkeeping woes behind him to resuscitate a faltering Zimbabwe batting effort on the third day in Harare. He was ably assisted by Graeme Cremer, who struck his maiden Test fifty, as the pair added 132 for the seventh wicket after Zimbabwe had slumped to 139 for 6 in the morning. Cremer remained unbeaten on 62 at tea, guiding his team to 291 for 7, still 47 runs behind their first target of avoiding the follow-on.

Moor was selective in his choice of shots, opting to loft the spinners straight as opposed to cross-bat strokes. He used his feet effectively and hit the slower bowlers through the line in the arc between long-off and long-on. When the bowlers compensated with a shorter length, the cut shot was productive.

He reached his fifty off 49 balls, thereby forcing Rangana Herath to dispatch fielders to the boundary. At one point, Herath had five deep fielders off his own bowling.

Cremer played a more attritional Test innings, waiting for anything overpitched. He received plenty of them and drove elegantly to accrue six of his seven boundaries through mid-off and extra cover. His timing was superlative and …

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