Kemar Roach adds three as Sri Lanka collapses around Lahiru Thirimanne’s 70
Stumps West Indies 13 by route 0 Sri Lanka 169 (Thirimanne 70, Dickwella 32, Holder 5-27, Roach 3-47) for 156 runs
Kemar Roach and Jason Holder combined for eight wickets between them, as Sri Lanka was eliminated by 169 on the opening day of the first test in Antigua. Lahiru Thirimanne scored for the visitors with 70 of 180 balls, but only three other Sri Lankan hitters reached double digits as they collapsed against a disciplined bowling performance from the hosts.
While Roach was arguably the more impressive of the two, with his impeccable lines and lengths, it was Holder who would reap the benefits of the pressure created, picking up his eighth five-course round in Testing. Meanwhile, Roach would finish 3 of 47. John Campbell and Kraigg Brathwaite finished an hour without a problem, with the West Indies finishing 13 without loss.
While Holder had been tight all day, it was in an uninterrupted spell after tea that he came to life. He picked up four of his five wickets during this spell, including the wickets of Dickwella and Thirimanne, Sri Lanka’s last two recognized hitters, just as the pair would have hoped to create an unlikely rearguard, having put 58 for the sixth gate.
The first to go was Dickwella, who up to that point had played unusually reserved tickets. Having left several out wide alone, and having skinned a couple somewhat haphazardly back from the square on offside, Dickwella finally brought out the edge he had been teasing as Rakheem Cornwell completed a comfortable shot. Sliding.
That would put a considerable brake on an already slow scoring rate, the pressure of which would cause a few jumps later, when Thirimanne played with his stumps, to turn into an angle from around the wicket, a tactic the West Indies had employed. . across the board to the left-hand hitters from Sri Lanka.
Holder would then have Suranga Lakmal caught in his next over before catching Lasith Embuldeniya lbw to close the innings, each side of Roach churning out an absolute ripper to knock Dushmantha Chameera off the peg.
Roach had undoubtedly been the featured artist up to that point, exemplified by his spell after the lunch break, when he collected the grounds of Dhananjaya De Silva and Pathum Nissanka.
His first victim was De Silva; Having gotten a few to move away past the right-hander’s outer edge, he finally got his man, luring him into the drive, but this time closing the ball past the inner edge to cut through the top of the stump. It was a well-configured window, and one that was just a reward for a completed match test spell.
And it was more of the same for Roach’s second. Immediately after the drinks break, he would get another good-length delivery to move slightly away from the hitter, this time Nissanka, whose gentle defensive push could only find its way to the first slip.
However, much of the damage to the visitors took place in the morning session, when they again lost their top order by just 50 races on the board. Cornwall and Holder had collected a window a piece, while Kraigg Brathwaite had made a splendid exit.
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