Sri Lankans in winning position, lead by 363

Malinga, Murali demolish Kiwis
 

Elmo Rodrigopulle reporting from New Zealand

CRICKET: Basin Reserve, Wellington, Saturday: Terrifying pace from Lasith Malinga bowling with the wind and vicious spin from Muttiah Muralitheran bowling against, demolished the New Zealand first innings for 130 and consolidating batting by the Sri Lankans have placed them in a winning position at the end of the second day of the Second National Bank Test at the Basin Reserve here today.

When play ended, the Lankans were 225 for 5 in their second essay leading by 363 runs with 5 more wickets remaining. The Lankans made 268 in their first visit.

With three more days remaining, the Lankans would be looking for another 100 runs at least to insure them from defeat and then launch an all out attack to dump the Kiwis,take sweet revenge and tie the two test series.

The only thing that can save the Kiwis is the unpredictable Wellington weather and the weather forecast for today is cloudy and intermittent showers.

It did not take long for the two Ms - Malinga and Muralitheran to get the Kiwis on the block and skin them. Malinga"s pace with his slinging action was too much for the homesters. None of the batsmen could come to terms with his toe-crushing yorkers and life threatening bouncers. They were ducking to protect their heads and jumping to keep their feet from being damaged.

Then Muralitheran"s vicious spin, especially the quick spinning doosra mesmerised and bemused the batsmen. Both bowlers continued from where they left off on the first day and bowled unchanged on the second day to polish the Kiwis off for 130.

Malinga finished with 5 for 68, his second five wicket haul, the first too being against the Kiwis at Napier on the previous tour. Muralitheran had 4 for 31 to add to his booming wicket taking tally.

Although the Lankans lost the majestic Sangakkara for 8`a rare failure, batsmen such as Tharanga 20, Jayasuriya 31, Mahela Jayawardena 31, Kapugedera 27, Chamara Silva 79 not out and Prasanna Jayawardena unbeaten on 2.

The day dawned bright and sunny, but the gale force winds that Wellington is famous for returned on the second day when the umpires called play.

After Sri Lanka had recovered to make 268 in their first innings, thanks largely to a scintillating unbeaten 156 from the elegant left hander Kumar Sangakkara, they had the wings of the Kiwis clipped at 66 for 4 at the end of day one, and indications were that the Lankans were going to have them grounded from that position and not let them take wing and that is exactly what the Lankans did.

If there were gale force winds, then lightning struck in the form of the slinging Lasith Malinga to bring down the first two wickets, that of Matthew Sinclair the overnight not out batsman and Daniel Vettori, both bowled by blinding yorkers that would have crushed their feet had it struck first. Sinclair made 6 and Vettori no score. The wickets fell at 75 and 85 and the Kiwis were struggling.

Wicket keeper McCallum got a taste of what pain is all about when he was struck on the ankle by a yorker from Malinga. Later Malinga was spot on with a beamer on his hand which put the player out of action for the rest of the day. Malinga,it was apparent had especially targeted McCallum and made him for his unsporting run out of Muralitheran in Chrischurch. The Kiwis gloved Sinclair behind the stumps and had two substitutes on the field with the second one being for Oram.

The man the Kiwis fear most Muttiah Muralitheran was spinning at the other end and worrying the batsmen. It was difficult for the spinner not to get into the wicket taking picture as he usually does.

It did not take long. First he had the injured Jacob Oram caught in front for one, and then removed James Franklin also for one and then pocketed Shane Bond for 8. Both going the pattern of Oram unable to read the doosra.

Then the spinner bowled top scorer Brendon McCallum 43, to end the Kiwi innings on 130 and give Lanka a valuable lead of 138. It was a batting effort that could be least described as woeful, considering that the wicket was as placid as placid could be. The innings was all over in just 39.1 overs with the last six wickets going for a paltry 64 run in 16.1 overs.

SRI LANKA 1ST INNINGS 268 

NEW ZEALAND 1ST INNINGS
C. Cumming b Maharoof	 		 13
J. How lbw Malinga			 26
M. Sinclair b Malinga	 		  6
S. Fleming c P.Jayawardene by Malinga	  0
N. Astle b Malinga	 		 17
B. McCullum b Muralitharan		 43
D. Vettori b Malinga	  		  0
J. Oram lbw b Muralitharan	 	  1
J. Franklin lbw b Muralitharan	  	  1
S. Bond lbw b Muralitharan	  	  8 
C. Martin not out	  		  0
Extras (b 7, lb 6, nb 2)	 	 15
TOTAL (10 wkts)				130

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-30, 2-40, 3-40, 4-66, 5-75, 
		 6-85, 7-90, 8-98, 9-116, 10-130.

BOWLING: Vaas 4-0-8-0, 
	 Malinga 18-4-68-5, 
	 Maharoof 5-2-10-1, 
	 Muralitharan 12.1-3-31-4.

SRI LANKA 2ND INNINGS

U. Tharanga lbw Martin			 20
S. Jayasuriya c Fleming b Vettori	 31
K. Sangakkara c Franklin b Bond	  	  8
M. Jayawardene c Sinclair b Vettori	 31
C. Kapugedera b Vettori	 		 27
C. Silva not out	 		 79
P. Jayawardene not out			 22
Extras (lb 4, nb 3)	 		  7
TOTAL (5 wkts)				225

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-44, 2-62, 3-62, 4-100, 5-168.

BOWLING: Bond 14-2-49-1 (2nb), 
	 Martin 11-1-41-1 (1nb), 
	 Vettori 31-5-101-3, 
	 Franklin 15-6-30-0.

OVERS: 71

UMPIRES: Simon Taufel (AUS), Brian Jerling (RSA)
MATCH REFEREE: Javagal Srinath (IND)
SERIES: New Zealand 1-0.