Kaushal Silva warmed-up perfectly for the upcoming Test series as he stroked an elegant century in the 2nd day of the tour match between Sri Lanka Board President’s XI and Pakistan XI at Colts grounds on Friday.
Sri Lankans resumed their innings from their overnight score of 44 for 1. Upul Tharanga was the first to be dismissed on Friday morning as he was caught behind by Sarfraz Ahmed off Wahab Riaz’s bowling for 35. Jehan Mubarak walked out to the middle to further strengthen his Test match return but his patient innings of 28 off 70 was ended in the 43rd over of the innings as he was clean bowled off left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar. Chandimal was very positive during his 32-ball stay scoring 22 but he became Babar’s 2nd victim when the score was 165.
Kaushal Silva slowly and steadily batted with class and determination to reach yet another ton. This domestic season’s top runs-scorer Milinda Siriwardene added 52 with Silva for the 5th wicket and the Lankans were sitting pretty at 217 for 4 at one stage. Babar completely carved a turnaround in Board President’s XI’s fortunes as the hosts lost their final 6 wickets for just 24 runs and was bowled out for 241. Siriwardene and wicket-keeper batsman Dickwella fell off successive deliveries while the inexperienced tail did not last long.
Kaushal Silva took 222 deliveries to score 101 runs and made only 9 boundaries before he became leg-spinner Yasir Shah’s 1st scalp. Zulfiqar Babar bowled tremendously well to pick up 6 wickets for just 31 runs during his marathon spell of 21 overs.
Pakistan XI started their 2nd innings with 6 runs ahead. Mohammed Hafeez disappointed the visitors once again as he fell to Nisala Tharaka’s bowling for the 2nd time in the match. Shan Masood and Azhar Ali negotiated the remaining overs carefully until stumps on day 2.
The play will be continued tomorrow (Saturday).
Chief Scores:
Pakistan XI – 247 all out in 73.3 overs: Ahmed Shehzad 82, Younus Khan 64, Asad Shafiq 27, Jeffrey Vandersay 5/73, Milinda Siriwardene 2/63.
Board President’s XI – 241 all out in 89.1 overs: Kaushal Silva 101, Dinesh Chandimal 22, Jehan Mubarak 28, Upul Tharanga 35, Milinda Siriwardene 26, Zulfiqar Babar 6/31, Yasir Shah 2/45.
Pakistan XI (2nd inn) – 27/1 in 11 overs: Shan Masood 15*.
