De Silva’s gritty century tame West Indies’ early strikes

ST. JOHN’S, An­tigua – Dhanan­jaya de Sil­va pro­duced a cap­tain’s knock of 120 runs from 168 de­liv­er­ies as Sri Lan­ka re­cov­ered from a dis­as­trous start to post 308 all out on an event­ful open­ing day of the first Test against West In­dies at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, on Thurs­day.

West In­dies cap­tain Ros­ton Chase won the toss and opt­ed to bowl first on a pitch of­fer­ing en­cour­age­ment for the seam­ers, a de­ci­sion that ap­peared in­spired when the home side re­duced Sri Lan­ka to 42 for 3 in­side the first ten overs.

The car­nage be­gan in just the sixth de­liv­ery of the match when Ke­mar Roach tucked up Pathum Nis­san­ka, who clipped a pa­cy de­liv­ery in­to the hands of short-leg field­er Amir Jan­goo for two.

Alzarri Joseph then pro­duced a dev­as­tat­ing dou­ble strike in the 10th over, first trap­ping Nis­han Madush­ka lbw for 23 with a full de­liv­ery that struck the bats­man on the shin, be­fore claim­ing Ka­min­du Mendis for a gold­en duck with a de­liv­ery that found the out­side edge and was safe­ly held at first slip by a div­ing John Camp­bell.

Sri Lan­ka’s re­cov­ery be­gan through the counter-at­tack­ing Di­nesh Chandi­mal, who com­bined with de Sil­va in a 68-run part­ner­ship that stead­ied the in­nings.

Chandi­mal was par­tic­u­lar­ly se­vere through the off-side, dri­ving and cut­ting with au­thor­i­ty as he com­piled 54 runs be­fore falling to an ex­cep­tion­al Shamar Joseph in­swinger.

That Shamar Joseph’s pin­point de­liv­ery sparked an­oth­er mi­ni-col­lapse when Kusal Mendis fol­lowed short­ly af­ter for a duck. The wick­et-keep­er was caught at sec­ond slip by Justin Greaves, reach­ing for a wide de­liv­ery.

From the rub­ble of 110 for five, de Sil­va con­struct­ed an in­nings of im­mense qual­i­ty and tem­pera­ment. His cen­tu­ry, the 13th of his Test ca­reer, ar­rived off 150 de­liv­er­ies when he flicked a de­liv­ery sump­tu­ous­ly through mid­wick­et.

The Sri Lankan cap­tain found will­ing al­lies in Son­al Di­nusha, who con­tributed a grit­ty 43 off 75 balls dur­ing a 99-run stand, and Mi­lan Rath­nayake, who added 27 dur­ing a 64-run sev­enth-wick­et part­ner­ship.

West In­dies’ seam at­tack toiled com­mend­ably through­out the day, with Ke­mar Roach, Alzarri Joseph, and Shamar Joseph all claim­ing two wick­ets apiece. How­ev­er, it was medi­um-pac­er Justin Greaves who proved most dam­ag­ing, fin­ish­ing with fig­ures of 3 for 39.

Greaves broke the cru­cial part­ner­ship when he dis­missed de Sil­va mid­way through the fi­nal ses­sion, the Sri Lankan cap­tain giv­ing a catch at cov­er off a lead­ing edge at­tempt­ing to work the ball through mid­wick­et.

At 273 for 7, Sri Lan­ka’s low­er or­der added valu­able runs to push the to­tal be­yond 300.

The day was not with­out blem­ish for the hosts, how­ev­er. Wick­et­keep­er Joshua Da Sil­va had a tor­rid time with the gloves, drop­ping three catch­es, in­clud­ing one low chance to his left from Alzarri Joseph’s bowl­ing that would have dis­missed Rath­nayake.

De­spite util­is­ing the full six-and-a-half hours of play, West In­dies man­aged on­ly 72.5 overs, a slug­gish rate that may con­cern match of­fi­cials.

West In­dies sur­vived the soli­tary over be­fore stumps with­out loss, with open­ers John Camp­bell and Bran­don King both yet to score as they trail Sri Lan­ka’s first-in­nings to­tal by 308 runs.

(CMC)

SUM­MARISED SCORES

SRI LAN­KA 308 in 71.5 overs (Dhanan­jaya de Sil­va 120, Di­nesh Chandi­mal 54, Son­al Di­nusha 43, Mi­lan Rath­naya­ka 27; Justin Greaves 3-39, Ke­mar Roach 2-32, Alzarri Joseph 2-60, Shamar Joseph 2-79, Jay­den Seales 1-73) vs WEST IN­DIES 0-0 in 1 over (John Camp­bell 0*, Bran­don King 0*)

Match In­fo

Toss: West In­dies, elect­ed to field.

Um­pires: Ah­san Raza, Shar­fud­doul­la

Re­serve Um­pire: Deighton But­ler

TV: Um­pire: Paul Reif­fel

Match Ref­er­ee: Jav­a­gal Sri­nath