Pakistan bowlers showed pure dominance on the opening day of the first match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan as they bowled the hosts out for 224 at the Galle International Stadium on Saturday.
Shaheen Shah Afridi remained the pick of the bowlers for the visitors as the left-hand seamer bagged four wickets in his impressive outing on the first day of the game.
He first dismissed Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne in the third over of the innings. Then Yasir Shah and Hasan Ali also got among the wickets and Sri Lanka lost four till lunch break with the score being 80/4.
Pakistan dominated the second session as well and picked another four wickets to see Sri Lanka struggling to even get past 200.
Sri Lanka Vs Pakistan Day 1 Match Highlights:
Earlier, Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne won the toss and opted to bat against Pakistan in the first Test of the two-match series at the Galle International Stadium.
The hosts faced a dreary start as they lost their skipper Dimuth Karunaratne very early. However, Oshada Fernando and Kusal Mendis then did a small partnership to keep the Sri Lanka on track and when everything was looking good they lost 3 wickets in the span of just 8 runs.
Ex-skipper Dinesh Chandimal tried his level best to add as many runs as possible. He scored the highest runs among the Sri Lanka batters with 76. But apart from him, none of other batters showed any signs of staying at the crease as a result Sri Lanka bundled out for just 222 runs.
After a solid performance by the bowling department, Pakistan couldn’t maintain their momentum as they lost two early wickets with just 24 runs on board by the time of stumps on day 1.
Azhar Ali (3) and Babar Azam (1) will resume the innings for Pakistan on the second day of the first match.
