Cremer’s 102* helps Zimbabwe avoid follow-on

Innings Zimbabwe 373 (Cremer 102*, Moor 79, Herath 3-97) trail Sri Lanka 537 (Tharanga 110*, Perera 110) by 164 runsLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A fantastic rearguard effort from Zimbabwe’s middle and lower order, led by Graeme Cremer’s maiden Test ton, helped the hosts avoid the follow-on and post 373 after they had slumped to 138 for 6 in the morning. Peter Moor put his wicketkeeping woes behind him to contribute with an 84-ball 79 and Donald Tiripano struck a composed 46.

Cremer, batting at No. 8, played an attritional Test innings, waiting for anything overpitched. He received plenty of them and drove elegantly to accrue eight of his ten boundaries through mid-off and extra cover. His timing was superlative and placement impeccable, important requisites for boundary-scoring.

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. …

continue reading in source www.espncricinfo.com