Indian not sweating over Mendis. Hard wicket for first Test.
India tour of Sri Lanka 2008India v Sri Lanka First Test Match, ColomboLast Update : 26-Jul-2008 16:00:00 IST
Colombo: The Indians might have had a mediocre outing in their first tour game in Sri Lanka but Anil Kumble and his boys are upbeat about their prospects in the first Test, starting here on Today.
Two bowlers in the Sri Lankan team have more than 1000 Test wickets between them. You have to respect that as well said Rahul Dravid.
Anirudha Polonowita has been involved with Sri Lanka Cricket's activities for the last 50 years. He is the head curator of Sri Lanka Cricket. He insisted on Monday that the pitch for the first Test between Sri Lanka and India at the SSC ground will be a sporting one.
"I have been working on he wicket for he last two months. In fact, the real preparation stared two weeks ago and we have been covering the pitch for last 10 days. The wicket is hard, will offer bounce and will easily last for five days", he told.
Latest Updates: Some Bad news. Overnight heavy rain which carried on in the morning as well and it's still drizzling out there. So at the moment it is just a drizzle and probably the ground staff will need around 2 hours to clear the covers. It means, chances of play starting before lunch looks bleak.
1:40 PM - Next inspection will 02:30 local time. If no any rain, then play will be start 03:00 pm.
03:15 PM: Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first. Today will play 42 overs. Play will be extended by an hour. And the game will start 30 minutes early in the next few days.
The team winning the toss and batting first has won five and lost 11 Tests out of 20 at the SSC. Ajantha Mendis debut match. The Both team given below:
India: Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Anil Kumble (c), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma.
Sri Lanka: Michael Vandort, Malinda Warnapura, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene (c), Thilan Samaraweera, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Kulasekera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis.
| Match Summary |
| Sri Lanka 1st Innings |
600/6 (162 Overs) |
| DPMD Jayawardene 136 (259) |
Ishant Sharma 2/124 |
| TT Samaraweera 127 (259) |
Harbhajan Singh 2/149 |
| India 1st Innings |
223/10 (72.5 Overs) |
| VVS Laxman 56 (118) |
M Muralitharan 5/84 |
| G Gambhir 39 (55) |
B Mendis 4/72 |
| India 2nd Innings |
138/10 (45 Overs) |
| G Gambhir 43 (90) |
M Muralitharan 6/26 |
| VVS Laxman 21 (26) |
B Mendis 4/60 |
|
| Result : Sri Lanka won by an innings and 239 runs |
| Player of the match : M Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) |
