Sri Lanka v Bangladesh, 2nd Test, Kandy, 29 April - 3 May, 2021

One hopes the Lankan curator leaves a little more juice in the Kandy deck this time.

Sri Lanka win the toss & bat.

Another century to Dimuth Karunarath, following his double last week. I was a bit surprised to read that it is his 12th test century.

Sri Lanka currently 0/182

They finally lose a wicket after a 209 run opening partnership.

Karunaratne out for 118

Thirimanne - 89 not out

WideWally wrote:Another century to Dimuth Karunarath, following his double last week.  I was a bit surprised to read that it is his 12th test century.

Sri Lanka currently 0/182

He’s quietly become one of the better Test openers in a very ordinary field...

Now a ton to Thirimanne.

1/233

Karunaratne is actually the third highest scoring Test opener of the past decade, behind only Warner and Cook (who racked up over 7000 in that time period despite having been retired for nearly three years now, and seemingly being a bit crap in his last couple of years!)

He’s around 1000 runs clear of the next two, Brathwaite and Elgar.

So - another road then. Sigh.

Is it the case that players used to be more adaptable to conditions? I mean, we’ve always had draw pitches, going back to “timeless Tests”, and always had extreme cases of “result pitches”. But now it seems that when conditions are very unfavourable to either batsmen or bowlers, we get the extremes - two-day Tests, or less than 20 wickets in 5 days.

Sri Lanka declare at 7/493

Dickwella, whose highest score in tests is 96, was left on 77 not out.

It was a road for the first two days but on the third day it has turned into a spinner's paradise.

Sri Lanka 7/493 (dec) & 2/17
Bangladesh 251

The cricinfo report says "Thirteen wickets falling today, and Sri Lanka end the day in a dominant position. Six of those wickets went to the debutant left-arm spinner Praveen Jayawickrama, who picked up the best-ever figures by a Sri Lankan debutant in Tests, and that gave the home team a 242-run first-innings lead. Sri Lanka end the day three down in their second innings, but they won't mind that, given how much turn and bounce there is now off this pitch."

Lanka wins by 209 runs.

Jayawickrama gets 5 2nd innings wickets to go with his 1st innings 6. Cracking debut.