England Lions managed to take upper hand on Day 1 of their four-day warmup game against Sri Lanka which commenced today (14th August) at Worcester.
England Lions’ skipper Lyndon James won the toss and invited Sri Lanka to take the first lease of the wicket.
Dimuth Karunaratne and Nishan Madushka opened the batting for the visitors and the duo managed to add 36 runs for the first wicket before the former was dismissed after making 26 runs.
Two overs later, Karunaratne’s opening partner Madushka was caught and bowled by Zaman Akhter for 11 runs.
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Sri Lanka’s recognized batters in the middle and lower order also failed to deliver with the bat as they were slipped to a precarious 95/7 after 31 overs.
Prabath Jayasuriya and Milan Rathnayake showed some resistance adding 27 runs for the 8th wicket. Jayasuriya contributed with a fighting 20 becoming the second top scorer of the innings for Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka were eventually bowled out for 139 runs with the seamer Zaman Akhter producing a superb bowling effort – 5/32 for England Lions.
In reply, England Lions showed much better application with the bat to post 145 runs for 4 wickets at the close of play on Day 1. The left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya picked up 3 wickets for 42 runs for the visitors.
Brief Scores
Sri Lanka – 139 (43.5) Dimuth Karunaratne 26, Prabath Jayasuriya 20, Zaman Akhter 5/32, Josh Hull 3/30
England Lions – 145/4 (34) Ben McKinney 46, Rob Yates 25, James Rew 22, Oliver Price 22, Hamza Shaikh 21*, Prabath Jayasuriya 3/42
Stumps – Day 1
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