Vin­ode Mam­chan

The West In­dies team ar­rived at the P Sara Oval yes­ter­day morn­ing to be greet­ed by the usu­al over­cast and gloomy con­di­tions but lit­tle did they know that the weath­er would ac­tu­al­ly re­flect their state off af­fairs a cou­ple hours lat­er.

An­oth­er day, an­oth­er Test 'white­wash' for the West In­dies as they went un­der to Sri Lan­ka by 72 runs on the fifth and fi­nal day of the fi­nal Test of the Sobers/Tis­sera se­ries. Chas­ing 244 runs for vic­to­ry the West In­dies were spun out for 171 to lost the se­ries 2-0.

The vis­i­tors were in the game dur­ing the morn­ing ses­sion as a con­fi­dent Shai Hope and Dar­ren Bra­vo worked the score along. Hope looked a dif­fer­ent play­er from the one who strug­gled ear­li­er in the se­ries, while Bra­vo blos­somed nice­ly af­ter a shaky start.

The two edged the West In­dies ahead with the score at 80 for one, when as usu­al, one dis­missal led to a col­lapse. Skip­per Ja­son Hold­er looked on in dis­may, sit­ting in the pavil­ion as West In­dies lost four wick­ets for 22 runs.

Hope, who had used his feet well in get­ting to the pitch of spin­ning de­liv­er­ies all morn­ing, got one from man of the match Ma­lin­da Siri­war­dana that out­foxed him and he was stumped for 35. He faced 72 balls and struck five fours in his in­nings. Next to go was the strug­gling Mar­lon Samuels who touched one to slip off Kusal Per­era for six. Samuels, who found runs al­most im­pos­si­ble to come this se­ries, got his 9th sin­gle fig­ure score in 17 in­nings against Sri Lan­ka.

Five runs lat­er it was the turn of Jer­maine Black­wood to re­turn to the pavil­ion and the West In­dies looked wob­bly at 102 for four.

How­ev­er, Bra­vo was still there and West In­dies would have hoped for an in­nings like the one be played against Eng­land at Kens­ing­ton Oval this year, that re­sult­ed in a win.

He and De­nesh Ramdin added 22 runs be­fore the off-colour wick­et­keep­er/bats­man fell for 10. The death knell was de­liv­ered one run lat­er, when Bra­vo fell to Ran­gana Herath for 61. He faced 134 balls and struck three fours and two six­es.

Herath would then run through the low­er or­der and al­though there was a last wick­et stand of 33 runs be­tween Jomel War­ri­can (20 not out) and Ke­mar Roach 13–the West In­dies would still go on to reg­is­ter their 102nd Test loss since 2000.

SCORE­BOARD

WI vs S Lan­ka

S Lan­ka 1st inns 200 all out

WI 1st inns 163 all out

Sri Lan­ka 2nd inns 206 all out

WI 2nd in­nings

(overnight 20/1)

K Brath­waite lbw Prasad*3

S Hope st Per­era b Siri­war­dana*35

D Bra­vo c Math­ews b Herath*61

M Samuels c Math­ews b K Per­era*6

J Black­wood lbw b Siri­war­dana*4

D Ramdin c Math­ews b Herath*10

J Hold­er lbw Siri­war­dana*7

K Roach lbw Herath*13

J Tay­lor c Siri­war­dana b Herath*1

D Bishoo run out*0

J War­ri­can not out*20

Ex­tras 3b, 1lb, 1w, 6nb*11

To­tal all out*171

Fall of wk­ts: 20, 80, 97, 102, 124, 125, 133, 136, 138, 171.

Bowl­ing: D Prasad 10-2-38-1, N Pradeep 3-0-11-0, R Herath 19.5-3-56-4, M Siri­war­dana 13-1-25-3, K Per­era 20-4-37-1.

Re­sult: Sri Lan­ka won by 72 runs.

Sri Lan­ka wins Sobers/Tis­sera se­ries 2-0.

Man of the match: Ma­lin­da Siri­war­dana.

SQUAD

SQUAD–Stafanie Tay­lor (cap­tain), Shak­era Sel­man (vice-cap­tain), Meris­sa Aguilleira, She­maine Camp­belle, Shamil­ia Con­nell, Brit­ney Coop­er, De­an­dra Dot­tin, Afy Fletch­er, Sta­cy-Ann King, Ky­cia Knight, Kyshona Knight, Hay­ley Matthews, Natasha McLean, Anisa Mo­hammed, Tremayne Smartt.