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| Saturday, 27 March 2004 |
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Saving grace knock from Hashan By Sa'adi Thawfeeq With his Test captaincy on the line Hashan Tillakaratne played himself into form with an unbeaten knock of 74, which may at least enable him to retain his place in the team for the tour of Zimbabwe next month. Tillakaratne's 271-minute knock enabled shaky Sri Lanka to gain a narrow first innings lead of six runs. By the end of the third day of this third and final cricket Test at the SSC grounds yesterday, Sri Lanka had grabbed three Australian wickets for 80 runs in the second innings to leave the match wide open. With two days remaining Australia who hold onto an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the series having won at Galle and Kandy, have an overall lead of 74 with seven wickets in hand. Tillakaratne's saving grace knock could not have come at a better time for him and for his side. They were in danger of being bowled out under Australia's first innings total of 401 when Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz fired out three top order batsmen in the first 28 minutes of the morning to leave Sri Lanka struggling at 256-5 after having resumed at 239-2. The solid left-hander made use of a missed chance at 33 when Ponting dropped him at second slip off Kasprowicz in the afternoon to hit 10 fours in his 201-ball knock. It was his first half-century as captain in his last 13 Test innings. My last innings Tillakaratne said that he went to bat yesterday thinking it was his last innings for Sri Lanka. "When I read the papers this morning there were so many things said and done. So I spoke to Ranjit Fernando in the morning and asked him 'what shall I do?' He was very supportive towards me and he told me not to worry but to go out there and play my normal game. It was very encouraging words," he said. Tillakaratne said that he rated his unbeaten innings of 74 as good as the 136 he scored against India in similar circumstances three years ago. "I was coming back after 2 1/2 years and I thought that was my last innings Anyhow I managed to get a hundred there. This innings is as good as that knock," said Tillakaratne. "Till I got to about 30-35, I was struggling a bit but after that I was okay. I had a lean period and now that I have come out of it I think I should be able to get more runs. I don't want to be a liability to the team," he said. Tillakaratne said that he was disappointed his side could not gain a first innings lead of about 100-150 which 'would have really put us in a winning position'. "With two more days we will have to pick up wickets tomorrow. The wicket will definitely help our spinners because it is now taking turn. A total of 250 is still gettable on this track in the fourth innings," said Tillakaratne. On the backfoot Australia struck hard in the first over of the day when a fired up Gillespie forced Mahela Jayawardene to get a thick outside edge to wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist without adding to his overnight score of 29. Gillespie's next delivery to Tillakaratne Dilshan was a beauty. It was a leg-cutter which beat the batsman comprehensively and left him non-plussed as it clipped the off bail. Tillakaratne edged Gillespie's hat-trick ball uppishly to leg for four and he should have been thankful there was no one close in. Kasprowicz then struck the most important blow to Sri Lanka's chances of gaining a big first innings lead when he got through the rock hard defence of Marvan Atapattu to knock back his off-stump with bowl him for 118. Inside the first 26 minutes of play Sri Lanka had lost three top order wickets for 16 runs. Tillakaratne and Samaraweera stopped the slide with a 71-run sixth wicket stand in 128 minutes. The partnership was broken in the ninth over after lunch when Samaraweera attempting to play Gillespie to leg was brilliantly caught by Gilchrist for 41 made off 84 balls with eight fours. Chaminda Vaas who is having a wonderful series with the bat, stuck it out for an hour adding 51 with his captain before he had a sudden rush of blood and was bowled to give Shane Warne his first wicket of the innings in his 29th over. At that stage Warne had conceded 99 runs. Lehmann who followed his century with the wickets of Jayasuriya and Sangakkara on Thursday, picked up his third of the innings when he had Zoysa stumped by Gilchrist. Warne added another scalp to his tally when he had Herath caught but his figures of two for 115, left him needing seven wickets in the Sri Lankan second innings to break Courtney Walsh's world record of 519 Test wickets. Langer escapes with reprimand Australian opener Justin Langer escaped with a reprimand after being charged by ICC match referee Chris Broad for flicking the bails off casually with his hand while the fielders were crossing during the Sri Lankan innings yesterday. Hashan Tillakaratne, the striker and Tilan Samaraweera had crossed for a single when the incident happened as the field was changing for the right-hander. Australian captain Ricky Ponting seeing the fallen bail on the ground appealed to the umpire thinking the batsman had knocked it down. The umpires also unaware of what had happened referred the incident to the third umpire Peter Manuel who confirmed that Langer in fact had knocked the bail down at the striker's end. Umpires Steve Bucknor and David Orchard lodged a report regarding the incident to ICC match referee Chris Broad who conducted an inquiry into the incident after play yesterday. Sri Lanka media manager Ray Illangakoon said that Langer had pleaded not guilty to the charge of Level 1 Clause 2 for bringing the game into disrepute. He said that Langer had said that he was disappointed that he was charged and explained his honesty. The match referee however had reminded Langer to stay clear of getting himself involved in similar incidents of this nature in the future. AUSTRALIA - 1ST INNINGS 401 SRI LANKA - 1ST INNINGS (overnight 239-2) M.S. Atapattu b Kasprowicz 118 S.T. Jayasuriya c Gillespie b Lehmann 71 K.C. Sangakkara c Gilchrist b Lehmann 22 D.P.M. Jayawardene c Gilchrist b Gillespie 29 T.M. Dilshan b Gillespie 0 H.P. Tillakaratne not out 74 T.T. Samaraweera c Gilchrist b Gillespie 41 W.P.U.J.C. Vaas b Warne 24 D.N.T. Zoysa st Gilchrist b Lehmann 3 H.M.R.K.B. Herath c Martyn b Warne 3 M. Muralitharan c Warne b Kasprowicz 8 Extras (B-4, LB-7, NB-2, W-1) 14 TOTAL (all out, 127.1 overs, 533 mins) 407 FALL OF WICKETS: 1-134 (Jayasuriya), 2-175 (Sangakkara), 3-240 (Jayawardene), 4-240 (Dilshan), 5-256 (Atapattu), 6-327 (Samaraweera), 7-378 (Vaas), 8-381 (Zoysa), 9-390 (Herath), 10-407 (Muralitharan). BOWLING: Gillespie 23-4-96-3, Kasprowicz 22.1-5-58-2(1w, 1nb), Williams 19-5-48-0 (1nb), Warne 36-7-115-2, Lehmann 19-2-50-3, Katich 8-0-29-0. AUSTRALIA - 2ND INNINGS J.L. Langer not out 29 M.L. Hayden lbw b Vaas 28 R.T. Ponting c Samaraweera b Herath 20 J.N. Gillespie c Jayawardene b Muralitharan 1 Extras (nb-2) 2 TOTAL (3 wkts at close, 23.2 overs, 107 mins) 80 FALL OF WICKETS: 1-40 (Hayden), 2-79 (Ponting), 3-80 (Gillespie). BOWLING: Vaas 9-2-22-1, Zoysa 5-0-24-0 (1nb), Muraliltharan 4.2-0-21-1, Herath 3-0-5-1, Samaraweera 2-0-8-0 (1nb). |
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