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Thursday, July 3, 2025

Windies 244 away from win

by

20151025

He kept in skip­per Ja­son Hold­er's ear all the time, telling him he could get the break­through. Well, Kraigg Brath­waite got more than that and end­ed with half-a-dozen wick­ets to give the West In­dies a chance of squar­ing the Sobers/Tis­sera Test se­ries, at the end of a rain short­ened third day of the sec­ond and fi­nal match at the P Sara Oval in Colom­bo.

The Bar­ba­di­an grabbed 6/29 to hum­ble Sri Lan­ka for 206 all out and in the process set­ting up a vic­to­ry tar­get of 244 runs for his team to chase. How­ev­er, his day did not end on a per­fect note as he per­ished leg be­fore wick­et to Dhami­ka Prasad just be­fore rain came down at 2.30 pm to wash out the re­main­der of the day's play, with the West In­dies 20/1.

Brath­waite said that when the fifth wick­et part­ner­ship was on­go­ing he told Hold­er to give him a bowl as he would get the wick­et for him."I just got a feel­ing that I would get a break­through, so I kept in Ja­son's ear and and he fi­nal­ly gave me the ball and told me to just keep it tight. I was able to get wick­ets and keep us in the Test match.

"It is go­ing to be dif­fi­cult to­mor­row but once our bat­ting unit stays pa­tient, I think that we will get the runs. There is as­sis­tance there for the spin­ners but the guys need to stay pos­i­tive and pa­tient and runs will come."De­spite rain hang­ing around play got un­der­way on time and im­me­di­ate­ly the West In­dies took to the Sri Lankans. Re­sum­ing on the bed­time po­si­tion of 71/2 the home team quick­ly slipped to 84 for four.

Debu­tant Jomel War­ri­can pro­duced the first cheer for the Caribbean men as he had the scalp of Kaushal Sil­va for 39. Soon af­ter, Jerome Tay­lor cut Di­nesh Chandi­mal in half with a beau­ti­ful in­swinger and De­nesh Ramdin grabbed the nick to com­plete his sec­ond catch of the morn­ing. Sri Lankan nerves were calmed af­ter that by a fifth wick­et part­ner­ship of 67 be­tween the free flow­ing Ma­lin­da Siri­war­dana and skip­per An­ge­lo Math­ews. Siri­wadana played with­out cau­tion and thrilled the hand­ful of Sri Lankans at the ground, twice car­ry­ing the ball over the ropes.

Look­ing to man­u­fac­ture a wick­et from some­where, Hold­er pulled a mas­ter stroke by throw­ing the ball in­to the hands of part-timer Brath­waite and the rest would prove to go down in his­to­ry.He cleaned men up with alarm­ing ease, aid­ed by some poor shots and bril­liant catch­ing by the Ja­maican Jer­maine Black­wood, who would end with five. Siri­war­dana was the first to fall to Brath­waite for a 60-ball 42 that in­clud­ed three fours and two six­es.

Get­ting less turn than every oth­er spin­ner who plied their trade on this pitch must have been the key to his suc­cess. Brath­waite main­tained a line just on or about the off stump and this gave Black­wood at first slip plen­ty busi­ness.

His biggest scalp was Math­ews, who was in­tent on oc­cu­py­ing the crease and look­ing to dig his team out of a hole. He was fi­nal­ly dis­missed for 46, re­alised in 153 min­utes off 120 balls with three fours. Wick­et af­ter wick­et, Brath­waite seemed to be more and more sur­prised and at the end his fig­ures read six for 29. It was the sec­ond best by a West In­di­an against Sri Lan­ka af­ter Corey Col­ly­more's 7/55. He was al­so the first Bar­ba­di­an bowl­ing off-spin to have tak­en five or more wick­ets in a Test match.

Due to the time loss due to the rain to­day, play will get un­der­way at 9.45 am on the fourth day.

SCORE­BOARD

WI vs S Lan­ka

S Lan­ka 1st inns 200 all out

WI 1st inns 163 all out

Sri Lan­ka 2nd inns

(overnight 76/2)

D Karunaratne c Bishoo b Tay­lor 0

K Sil­va c Black­wood b War­ri­can 32

K Mendis c Ramdin b War­ri­can 39

D Chandi­mal c Ramdin b Tay­lor 12

A Math­ews c Black­wood b Brath­waite 46

M Siri­war­dana c Black­wood b Brath­waite 42

K Per­era c Ramdin b Brath­waite 5

R Herath c Black­wood b Brath­waite 18

D Per­era c Roach b Brath­waite 7

D Prasad not out 1

N Pradeep c Black­wood b Brath­waite 0

Ex­tras: 2lb, 2b 4

To­tal all out 206

Fall of wk­ts: 0, 55, 84, 84, 151 165,195, 203, 206, 206.

Bowl­ing: Tay­lor 8-3-26-2, Roach 6-1-15-0, Hold­er 5-1-9-0, War­ri­can 25-2-62-2, Bishoo 20-3-61-0, Brath­waite 11.3-4-29-6.

WI 2nd in­nings

K Brath­waite lbw Prasad 3

S Hope not out 17

To­tal for 1 wkt 20

Fall of wk­ts: 20.

Bowl­ing: D Prasad 5-2-4-1, N Pradeep 1-0-8-0, R Herath 3-1-8-0.


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