The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando
For 325 balls, Shane Dowrich resisted. It wasn’t pretty work. Most of it was defence, seeing out the swinging new ball in the morning, then dead batting the turning deliveries from the spinners in the afternoon.
But for West Indies, Dowrich’s fight, and the 70-plus partnerships he forged with Devendra Bishoo and Kemar Roach were invaluable. From 145 for 5, the hosts dragged themselves to 414 for 8 – a score Jason Holder felt comfortable enough to declare on.
Then their quicks brought the fire. In the 10 overs they had at Sri Lanka before stumps, they had the batsmen jiving and jerking – Shannon
Gabriel consistently breaching the 140kph mark. They were rewarded with three wickets, and consequently, a firm grip on this match.
Sri Lanka, remember, are playing with only six specialist batsmen. Dinesh Chandimal survived the 31 balls he faced before stumps. He had Roshen Silva for company at the end of the day. If Sri Lanka are to get close to West Indies’ score in this innings, these two batsmen, along with Niroshan Dickwella who is to come next, will have to produce substantial scores.
Summarized scores: Stumps day two- Sri Lanka 31 for 3 (Chandimal 3*, Roshen 1*) trail West Indies 414 for 8 (Dowrich 125*, Kumara 4-95) by 383 runs