Sri Lanka won the first Test match by 225 runs and registered their 11th Test win against Zimbabwe in the final hour of play in Harare.
Zimbabwe fought till the end to force a draw but the Lankans stuck to their task to bowl out the hosts to 186 on day five.
Man of the Match and Zimbabwe Captain, Graeme Cremer’s strong resistance was ended by his counterpart, Rangana Herath with just 10 overs to go in the match. He jumped out of his crease and tried to work the ball to the leg side but the ball sneaked through the bat and pad as Kusal Perera did the rest behind the stumps.
Cremer and Carl Mumba delayed the Sri Lankan win, battling for 116 balls scoring only 38 runs for the 9th wicket. Dilruwan Perera who ended up with superb figures of 3 for 34 finished off the centenary Zimbabwe Test castling Christopher Mpofu for a duck with only a little more than 7 overs left as Herath registered his maiden win as Sri Lanka Test Captain.
Earlier in the day, play resumed half an hour early on day five to catch up on the lost overs yesterday and Sri Lanka declared from their overnight score of 247 for 6 setting an improbable target of 412 runs to win for the hosts.
Zimbabwe got off to a decent start with Brian Chari and Tino Mawoyo adding 31 runs before the first bowling change in the 17th over of the day drew first blood for the visitors. Teenage debutant seamer, Lahiru Kumara bowled a ripper to clean up Chari as he was neither forward nor back to a good length delivery which went through the gate.
Mawoyo and Hamilton Masakadza added 37 runs for the 2nd wicket but off-spinner Dilruwan Perera trapped the former LBW even though the replays showed the ball was missing the stumps. Left-hander, Craig Ervine was undone by another scorching off-spinning delivery by Perera which drifted in and spun just enough to beat the outside edge and hit the back pad.
Suranga Lakmal got the ball to move sharply to trap Masakadza and Malcolm Waller inside three balls in the penultimate over before lunch as reverse-swing swung the pendulum towards Sri Lanka with Zimbabwe reeling at 74 for 5 after being 68 for 1 at one stage.
Peter Moor became young Kumara’s second scalp in the innings and it was the only wicket in the post-lunch session. Moor’s dismissal ended the brief 26-run stand for 6th wicket alongside Sean Williams. The reverse-swing took Moor by surprise as the ball nipped back sharply of a crack in the surface, struck a tad high and the replays confirmed that the ball would have missed the stumps.
Left-handed Williams took 21 balls to get off the mark but since then made 6 boundaries during his valiant 92-ball 40 which frustrated the Lankans as he added 39 runs for the 7th wicket in 19.4 overs alongside Cremer.
Williams became Herath’s first wicket in the second innings as the spin maestro struck right after the tea break. The arm delivery took the outside edge and was pouched by Dhananjaya De Silva at first slip.
Donald Tiripano was given not out after being struck right in front of the stumps by Herath in the final ball of his 20th over but was given LBW by umpire Ian Gould in the next ball he delivered even though the replays showed a big inside edge.
The second and final Test match will be played at the same venue starting on 6th November.
[/vc_column][/vc_row]
