• Home
• /
• Cricket

Triple strike stalls India in second Sri Lanka test

Sri Lanka’s spinners grabbed three wickets for eight runs shortly before lunch to stall India’s steady progress in the second test on Wednesday.

India, buoyed by an opening stand of 165 between Murali Vijay and Virender Sehwag, stumbled to the interval on 173-3 with Sachin Tendulkar on two and Vangipurappu Laxman yet to score. The tourists trail Sri Lanka by 469 runs after the hosts amassed 642-4 declared in their first innings.

India added 70 runs to their overnight score before suffering a collapse late in the morning session soon after Vijay had reached his second test fifty with a straight drive off Ajantha Mendis for his eighth boundary.

Sehwag, dropped by Thilan Samaraweera at point on 89, failed to fully capitalise on that lapse when he went for an adventurous drive to bring up his century and was stumped by Prasanna Jayawardene for an attacking 99 off 101 balls.

Sehwag’s dismissal after hitting 15 fours gave debutant off-spinner Suraj Randiv his maiden test wicket with his first ball of the day.

Randiv struck again two overs later by trapping Rahul Dravid leg before wicket for three. Fellow spinner Mendis then dismissed Vijay in a similar manner for 58 to round off a great session for Sri Lanka.

Randiv went to the break with figures of 2-18 and Mendis 1-38.

Sri Lanka leads the three-match series 1-0 after their 10-wicket victory in Galle last week.

• Cricket