Sri Lanka fight back with late wickets after Dickwella fifty

Rex Clementine in Galle

We tend to emphasize a lot on Shane Warne’s heroics in Galle following a terrific performance in that 2004 series. Making a return to international cricket after being banned from the game for doing drugs, the late leg-spinner took a match bag of ten wickets to help Australia record a come from behind victory in one of world’s most iconic grounds. Warne also edged past Muttiah Muralitharan in the race to 500 becoming the first spinner to the magical mark in the same game. Off-spinner Nathan Lyon could be writing his own fairytale in Galle.

Lyon was a curator at the Adelaide Oval when his talent was spotted by Darren Berry, one time a leading contender to take up Sri Lanka’s Head Coach position. Seven months after making his First Class debut,  Lyon was brought to Sri Lanka where he made his Test debut here in Galle in 2011. He entered the record books when he picked up a wicket off his first ball in Test cricket. No ordinary batsman; someone by the name of Kumar Sangakkara, world’s number one ranked batsman at that point. He went onto claim a five wicket haul in the first innings and the rest is history.

Lyon, now 34 has over 400 Test wickets and he is Australia’s third highest wicket taker all time. The saying that Sri Lanka either makes or breaks people is true in the case of Warne and Lyon. He was quite a handful yesterday too helping Australia to bowl out Sri Lanka for 212 and Australia finished the day on 98 for three, trailing by 114 runs.

A couple of poor shots from Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Mendis had reduced Sri Lanka to 42 for two and then Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews rebuilt the innings as the hosts reached 68 for two at lunch. Lyon then made a breakthrough as Warner took a stunning one-handed catch to dismiss the captain.

Leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson dismissed Dhananjaya de Silva and Dinesh Chandimal in successive deliveries to reduce them to 97 for five.

Niroshan Dickwella joined Angelo Mathews and added 42 runs for the sixth wicket as Sri Lanka staged a recovery. There was a further 54 run stand between the wicketkeeper and Ramesh Mendis as Sri Lanka closed in on the 200 run mark.

With his sweeps and reverse sweeps, Dickwella reached his half-century and the shot of the day was when he scooped Pat Cummins for four over the head of the wicketkeeper.

With a below par score, Sri Lanka needed early wickets. However, Australia’s openers added 47 runs off 55 deliveries and kept the pressure showing aggression.  Ramesh Mendis created opportunities but sent down loose balls frequently too allowing the tourists to cash in. Warner had raced to 25 off 24 deliveries before being trapped leg before wicket by Mendis.

Marnus Labuschagne attempted to reverse sweep Mendis but hit it straight to Asitha Fernando at backward of point.

Sri Lanka evened things out on day one with the wicket of Steve Smith, who was sold down the river by Usman Khawaja, the non-striker. Smith was furious as he walked off the ground.

Khawaja was unbeaten on 47 and Australia need a big knock from him. He’s been in solid form this year having scored close to 800 runs in seven Tests at an average of 133. The first Muslim to play for Australia has scored four hundreds this year.