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Rain cuts first day short after 12 wickets tumble
- Updated: July 26, 2016
Australia 66 for 2 (Smith 28*, Khawaja 25*) trail Sri Lanka 117 (Lyon 3-12, Hazlewood 3-21) by 51 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details
Before this Test was 40 overs old, 12 wickets had fallen and just 124 runs had been scored. Three of the dismissals were bowled, four lbw. Forget about reducing the depth of bats, making them wider and longer seemed a better way to achieve balance between bat and ball on a day like this. But then Steven Smith and Usman Khawaja came along, played steady, and restored sanity. They reminded everyone that, actually, these were quite good batting conditions.
Until then, the only such hint from the scorecard was the footnote that Angelo Mathews had won the toss and chosen to bat. Josh Hazlewood: 3 for 21 from ten overs. Nathan Lyon: 3 for 12 from three. Sri Lanka’s top scorer: debutant Dhananjaya de Silva with 24. Sri Lanka’s best partnership: 25. And after Sri Lanka were all out for 117, David Warner and Joe Burns both fell within the first four overs of Australia’s innings. Surely this was a bowler’s paradise?
Not quite. Yes, there was spin. Yes, there were hints of swing. So there should be. But the bounce was generally true and as Smith and Khawaja began to show later in the day – before rain washed out the entire final session – good batting could be rewarded. Of course, they were both still finding their way when play was abandoned, Smith on 28 from 46 deliveries and Khawaja on 25 from 54. But only one Sri Lankan – Dinesh Chandimal with 15 off 54 – had lasted that long.
Certainly Australia’s bowlers deserve significant credit. Hazlewood especially found just enough …
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