Layne strikes but Bandara, Perera resist as Sri Lanka emerges leading by 148

HAM­BAN­TO­TA – Jo­hann Layne pro­duced a fiery spell to rat­tle Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers, but an un­bro­ken sixth-wick­et stand of 82 be­tween An­jala Ban­dara and Pulin­du Per­era steered the hosts to 173 for five at stumps on the third day of their four-day con­test against West In­dies Acad­e­my Sri Lan­ka on Wednes­day.

At the close at the Mahin­da Ra­japak­sha In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um, Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing led by 148 runs over­all af­ter be­ing set 382 for vic­to­ry.

They fin­ished the day on 173 for five in their sec­ond in­nings, fol­low­ing a first-in­nings to­tal of 356.

West In­dies Acad­e­my, re­sum­ing from their overnight 273 for five, post­ed 381 in their first knock, se­cur­ing a slen­der 25-run lead thanks large­ly to Ri­val­do Clarke’s su­perb 127.

The Acad­e­my cap­tain, who had been un­beat­en on 72 at the end of day two, added 55 runs to his tal­ly be­fore be­com­ing the sev­enth wick­et to fall with the score on 379.

Clarke faced 218 de­liv­er­ies, strik­ing 11 fours and one six, be­fore he was caught by Chamod Battage off the bowl­ing of Shak­thi Udara.

Udara was the tor­men­tor-in-chief for Sri Lan­ka, fin­ish­ing with out­stand­ing fig­ures of six for 102 from 29.4 overs. Nisala Abeyratne sup­port­ed with two for 76.

Layne, who had al­ready made a valu­able 35 with the bat, then turned the match on its head with the ball.

The pac­er tore through Sri Lan­ka’s top or­der, re­duc­ing the home side to a pre­car­i­ous 46 for four at one stage.

Ravin­du Rashan­tha fell ear­ly for two, caught by Maven­dra Dindyal off Je­di­ah Blades. Layne then struck twice in quick suc­ces­sion, trap­ping Asitha Wan­ni­nayake lbw for 14 be­fore bowl­ing cap­tain Dinu­ra Kalu­pa­hana for 25.

Sa­han Kos­ala be­came Layne’s third vic­tim, caught by Shaqkere Par­ris for just one, as the score­board read a wor­ry­ing 46 for four.

Saru­jan Sam­mu­gana­then of­fered brief re­sis­tance, mak­ing 11 be­fore he was caught and bowled by Ryan Ban­doo, leav­ing Sri Lan­ka reel­ing at 91 for five.

But from the depths of trou­ble, Ban­dara and Per­era mount­ed a res­olute fight­back. Wick­et­keep­er Ban­dara re­mained un­beat­en on 57, while Per­era fin­ished the day not out on 50.

Their un­bro­ken 82-run part­ner­ship not on­ly stead­ied the in­nings but shift­ed the mo­men­tum back to­wards the home side head­ing in­to the fi­nal day.

Layne end­ed the day with three for 34 from his nine overs.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

SRI LAN­KA EMERG­ING PLAY­ERS 356 & 173-5 in 49 overs (An­jala Ban­dara 57 not out, Pulin­du Per­era 50 not out; Jo­hann Layne 3-34)

WEST IN­DIES ACAD­E­MY 381 in 103.4 overs (Ri­val­do Clarke 127, Maven­dra Dindyal 60, Shaqkere Par­ris 55, Damel Eve­lyn 35, Jo­han Layne 35, Amari Goodridge 28; Shak­thi Udara 6-102, Nisala Abeyratne 2-76).

Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers lead by 148 runs.