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Sri Lanka pull
off a hard earned victory |
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Sri Lanka had to work
hard for their victory on the last day of the
Kandy Test. England almost were getting
themselves in a position of saving the Test
Match after a brilliant rearguard action from
Ian Bell and Matt Prior. However, Murali's
clinical double blow with the second new ball
which removed both Bell and Prior signaled the
end of the English hopes.
In the morning session,
a probing line just around the off stump from
Chaminda Vaas was good enough to send back the
two overnight batsmen - Michael Vaughan and
James Anderson. Already three down, England lost
two more big wickets that of Pietersen and
Collingwood to Dilhara Fernando. By lunch,
England struggling to delay the inevitable at
125 for 5. After Lunch, Jayasuriya broke the
promising partnership between Bell and debutant
Ravi Bopara (34) by getting the former lbw.
Sri Lanka were looking
to wrap up things with Bell being partnered by
Prior who couldn't even get off the mark in the
first innings. But this around, it was a
different story altogether for Prior as he hung
in there and defended beautifully to keep the
Sri Lankans at bay. England saw the post lunch
session through at the loss of just Bopara. The
dark clouds meanwhile where hovering over in the
skies giving plenty of hope for England. The
partnership continued to frustrate SL even after
Tea which made the Sri Lankans take the second
new ball in the 81st over. It was the magic of
Murali that crushed England's chances with a
couple of balls that ended the fight of Matt
Prior (63 from 147 with 8 fours) and Ian Bell
(74 from 209 balls with 6 fours) in the space of
eight balls. Both right handers kept the Sri
Lankans waiting for more than 40 overs.
The tail didn't wag for
a long time for England because of the
difficulty to survive Murali and Lasith Malinga.
In the 94th over, it was all over with Hoggard
getting cleaned up by a Malinga yorker. Sri
Lanka thus took the first test by 88 runs. Vaas
and Murali ended up with three wickets each. All
the other bowlers used contributed too with
wickets. The Man of the Match was given to Kumar
Sangakkara ahead of Muralitharan.
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