da bet sport： Pakistan picked up two early Sri Lankan wickets on a rain-curtailedopening day of the second Test which started here at the Arbab NiazStadium on Sunday
da dobrowin： 06-Mar-2000Pakistan picked up two early Sri Lankan wickets on a rain-curtailedopening day of the second Test which started here at the Arbab NiazStadium on Sunday.Shoaib Akhtar clipped Sanath Jayasuriya’s bail off a delivery whichkept low and Abdur Razzaq removed Russel Arnold off an outswinger toreduce the tourists from 58 for no loss to 67 for two.However, the in-form Marvan Atapattu and Aravinda de Silva battedcautiously to see Sri Lanka through to 88 for two at stumps from the37 available overs in the final session.Atapattu, batting on 29, was lucky to see off the day when a veryconfident bat and pad appeal against him was turned down by EnglishmanJohn Hampshire. However, television replays confirmed that the ballhad caught the shoulder of Atapattu’s bat while rebounding from thepad before going into the hands of a waiting Yousuf Youhana at forwardshort-leg.De Silva, who played a match-winning knock of 112 in Rawalpindi,continued from where he had left by belting three exquisite boundariesin his 33-ball 18.Earlier, two days of rains resulted in the loss of first two sessionsplay. The groundsmen did a wonderful job by making the ground readyfor at least last session’s play. Prospects of any play on the firstday looked remote in the morning when small pools of water werevisible in the outfield and the bowlers’ run-up looked muddy andsoggy.The umpires – Hampshire and his Pakistani colleague Mohammad NazirJunior – inspected the wicket and outfield four times before decidingat 1:15 p.m that the toss would be made at 2:30 p.m and the matchwould start 30 minutes later at 3:00 p.m.The umpires have also decided to extend play by an hour in theremaining days of the match to make up for the time lost onSunday. Play would now begin 30 minutes earlier (at 9.30 a.m) and end30 minutes late, weather permitting, of course.During the period while the groundsmen were trying to repair thedamage caused by rain, Sri Lanka suffered a body blow when lankyleft-arm pacer Nuwan Zoysa strained his back during a trainingsession. He was placed by Ravindra Pushpakumara shortly beforetoss. Pushpakumara had taken five for 56 in the third Test at Harareagainst Zimbabwe which ended in a draw.Pushpakumara was one of the two Sri Lankan changes, first being ofTillekeratne Dilshan for the injured Arjuna Ranatunga, who had flownhome after the Rawalpindi Test.Pakistan, meanwhile, made four changes in the team that went downfighting to Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi by two wickets.Wasim Akram, Moin Khan, Saqlain Mushtaq and Wajahatullah Wasti wereleft out – the first three because of injuries and illness. They werereplaced by comeback fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, debutant wicket-keeperAtiq-uz-Zaman, off-spinner Arshad Khan and the crowd favourite ShahidAfridi.Wasim was left out despite expressing his availability to the teammanagement on Saturday.”But I pulled out because I didn’t get the opportunity to bowl here toconvince myself and the selectors. I didn’t want to take the fieldhalf-fit because I would have then have been just a liability like Iwas in Rawalpindi,” Wasim said before leaving for Karachi.He had bowled just 13 balls in Rawalpindi but scored a vital 79 in arecord 145-run ninth wicket stand with Younis Khan.Moin lost his battle against fever and had to miss his first matchafter 32 Tests in more than three-and-a-half years.Moin’s enforced absence provided an excellent opportunity to24-year-old Atiq-uz-Zaman to earn a well deserved green cap andexhibit his potential behind the wickets. He passed the test on theopening day when he gathered the ball cleanly and also celebrated hisdebut Test by grabbing a regulation catch to dismiss Arnold.Arshad Khan came in place of Saqlain Mushtaq while Pakistan addedanother bowling option by including Shahid Afridi who has taken fivewickets on his debut against Australia in Karachi with his craftyleg-spinners with an occasional faster one.Saeed Anwar won the toss for the fourth time in the series and againdecided to field. He had won three tosses in the one-day series onlyto lose the rubber 3-0. In Rawalpindi, Pakistan were put into bat byJayasuriya.Saeed’s decision to field turned out to be somewhat bewildering whenhe went on the defensive after just six overs into the match. In WaqarYounis’s fourth over, Saeed removed one of the three slip fields andin the ninth over discarded another slip and placed a third-man and asweeper.Having decided to field first, one thought he would attack instead ofgoing into a shell with the ball still new and in the background thatboth the Sri Lankan openers were caught in the arc behind the wicketsin Rawalpindi.But Intikhab Alam, team coach, defended Saeed’s decision.”We fielded first because we didn’t knew how the wicket would behave,”he said.The pitch appears to have nothing much for the seamers as even expressdeliveries from Shoaib Akhtar were safely negotiated by Jayasuriya andAtapattu. But with odd ball remaining low, like the one whichdismissed Jayasuriya, this wicket looks nothing but dodgy.
