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BY Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from Kandy

KANDY, Wednesday - The opening day's play of the second cricket Test at the Asgiriya International Stadium here today saw the controlling body for the game, the International Cricket Council (ICC) being made to look an ass over the law governing the bowling of high full pitched balls and a splendid West Indies fight back to reduce Sri Lanka to a total of 193 for five wickets before rain washed out play in the final session. The first session had enough drama to last the entire day, as West Indies were reduced to just two fully-fit bowlers when Mervyn Dillon suffered sharp pains in his chest in his third over of the innings and was forced to retire.

Colin Stuart coming on to complete the over, bowled a high full pitched ball also known as a beamer to Sanath Jayasuriya which England umpire John Hampshire called no-ball. Stuart's third ball was also a similar delivery which Hampshire no-balled again. For all those who witnessed the action it was quite plain to see the two balls bowled at Jayasuriya were not intentional, but may have slipped out of the bowler's hand probably due to excessive sweating.

However, according to the existing ICC Code of Conduct, Standard Playing Conditions and other Regulations September 2001, Stuart cannot bowl again in the same innings.

This modification to the MCC Laws of Cricket which allows a bowler to be penalised only after bowling three such deliveries, was changed by the ICC in September 2000.

The modified ICC Law 42.6 (b) on The Bowling of High Full Pitched Balls reads: "(e) At the first repetition call and signal no ball and when the ball is dead direct the captain of the fielding side to take the Bowler off forthwith and to complete the over with another Bowler, provided that the Bowler does not bowl two overs or part thereof consecutively.

(f) Not allow the Bowler, thus taken off, to bowl again in the same innings".

The umpire could not be blamed for sticking to the existing rules, but where commonsense was lacking in Stuart's case was that he was deprived of bowling in the innings for a crime he had not committed intentionally. Where the ICC may have erred in amending the law was by not adding the word 'intentionally', which would have, as in Stuart's case, given the umpire the chance to judge whether the ball was bowled intentionally to harm the batsman or whether it was by accident the ball had slipped out of his hands. That way Stuart would have still been bowling. With no such rules available the umpire had to adhere by what was in existence.

The rule itself looks quite absurd and the ICC will have to rethink of adding a few terms to it to make it read and act with some thought and foresight.

"It was the ruling at the end of the day. Anybody knows that it wasn't deliberate, it was two balls that genuinely slipped out of Colin's hands.

Sometimes you like to use your discretion, but at the end of the day they've (the umpires) got to make a decision based on the rules," said West Indies captain Carl Hooper.

Reflecting on the day's events Hooper said: "When you weigh everything that's happened and think of the total at 193 for five, I suppose it was good effort by the remaining bowlers. We just had Pedro (Collins), (Dinanath) Ramnarine and myself.

"We had a good first over where we got a wicket early which is what we wanted.

It would have been interesting to have had a fully fit Merv and Stuart at least for the first session. But having said that and coming to lunch at 85 for four is all what we would have wanted. But after lunch we lost a couple of bowlers and struggled a bit with Ramnarine and Pedro taking on the brunt of the bowling.

"If we can get another wicket early tomorrow and expose the tail, then we can restrict them to under 250. That'll be ideal for us.We want to bat once and make a big score.

"Merv is going to see a specialist and hopefully we may have him back in the second innings.Stuart will also be back and if we bat well we are hoping to put a lot of pressure.

"You face these kinds of situations, one of two things can happen. It could capitulate the team or somebody can put his hands up and say, hey, I am going to take the brunt of it. Today, Ramnarine did that remarkably well. He bowled with a fairly new ball from the first session and took three for 54 from 18 overs," said Hooper.

Hooper said the pitch will flatten out and probably turn more as it goes on and that tomorrow and the third day could be a good wicket to bat on.

After all the pre-match talking they've done, Sri Lanka batsmen committed the same mistakes again to find themselves in a tricky situation at the end of the first session.

They lost Marvan Atapattu as early as the first over of the match when he was given out lbw to Dillon by Hampshire without scoring. Atapattu was a trifle unlucky on that decision as the ball seemed to be going down the leg side.

Jayasuriya was surprised by a delivery that came off a good length from Collins and only succeeded in putting up an easy catch to third slip. He made 16 with three fours and was looking good when he was out.

Then followed two of the worst dismissals one could witness in Test cricket when both Kumar Sangakkara and Russel Arnold paid the penalty for trying to cut balls against the spin and were comprehensively bowled. They simply gifted their wickets to the West Indies instead of trying consolidate the early losses and at a time when the opposition's bowling strength had been reduced to just two front-line bowlers Collins and Ramnarine.

Sangakkara went for 16 and Arnold continued his poor run with the bat in Tests making just four. It was finally left to Mahela Jayawardene and Hashan Tillakaratne to knock back some sense into the batting. The two played some attractive cricket stroking the ball to all parts of the field as they regained the initiative for Sri Lanka. The pair added 116 for the fifth wicket in over two hours and provided the best batting of the day. Jayawardene batting in great form missed out on a hundred for the second successive time in the series. He hit nine fours and a six in a stay of 171 minutes before hitting back a return catch to leg-spinner Dinanath Ramnarine.

Tillakaratne continued his fine form on his come back to Test cricket three months ago, by stroking his way to his 17th Test fifty and his third over fifty in his last four Test innings where he has not been dismissed. He has so far batted for 883 minutes without being dismissed and is closing on South African Jacques Kallis' record. Kallis batted for over 1000 minutes before being dismissed.

SRI LANKA - 1ST INNINGS

M. Atapattu          lbw b Dillon                       0
S. Jayasuriya        c Gayle b Collins               16
K. Sangakkara       b Ramnarine                    15
M. Jayawardene    c and b Ramnarine            88
R. Arnold              b Ramnarine                     4
H. Tillakaratne       not out                          60
T. Samaraweera    not out                            4
Extras                (LB-2, NB-4)                     6
TOTAL b         (5 wkts at close, 59 overs)     193

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-0, 2-27, 3-49, 4-53, 5-169.

To bat: C. Vaas, N. Bandaratillake, N. Zoysa, 
           M. Muralitharan.

BOWLING: Dillon 8.2-1-25-1 (1NB), Collins 14-1-53-1 (1NB), 
                Stuart 0.1-0-2-0 (2NB), Gayle 0.3-0-4-0, 
                Hooper 17-5-35-0, Ramnarine 16-3-54-3, 
                Samuels 3-0-18-0.

WEST INDIES: Darren Ganga, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Brian Lara, Carl Hooper, Marlon Samuels, Ridley Jacobs, Mervyn Dillon, Dinananth Ramnarine, Colin Stuart, Pedro Collins.

Umpires: John Hampshire (England) and Gamini Silva (Sri Lanka), 
TV umpire: P. Manuel (Sri Lanka), Match Referee: Raman Subba Row (England).

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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