Sports
Brathwaite resists Sri Lanka on opening day
Kraigg Brathwaite remained unbeaten on 99.
Kraigg Brathwaite starred with a resilient, unbeaten 99 as he led the way for West Indies on the opening day of the second and final Test in Antigua. West Indies did well to recover from the double jolt from Suranga Lakmal, to keep Sri Lanka at bay with a score of 287 for seven at stumps on Monday.
Just the two wickets fell in the final session as Brathwaite held his end in stoic fashion with Rahkeem Cornwall for company, who clobbered the Sri Lankan bowlers to the boundaries at will. Together, the pair added over 65 runs for the eighth wicket. Despite Sri Lanka taking the new ball and bringing on their best bowlers in the final period of play, the pair saw the day through without much fuss.
It was an elongated ten-over spell from Lakmal, where he bowled with discipline; he was accurate and consistently bowled good lengths. He was a cause of bother for the West Indies batsmen early in the day, and was rewarded with the wickets of John Campbell and Nkrumah Bonner, the centurion from the first Test. He could’ve had a third too, had Pathun Nissanka not spilled an outside edge off Mayers’s bat.
After eking out an outside edge off Campbell’s bat in the seventh over with his round-the-wicket ploy, Lakmal set up Bonner. Two balls leading into his dismissal saw an outside edge falling just short of the slip fielder, while the next one beat the edge. The wicket ball came back in just enough to take the inside edge to knock the stumps over. After six maidens on the trot, Lakmal conceded his first run from the 37th ball of his spell.
Brief scores:
West Indies
287/7 (Kyle Mayers 49, Kraigg Brathwaite 99n.o. Rahkeem Cornwall 43n.o.; Suranga Lakmal 3-71)