HAM­BAN­TO­TA – Off-spin­ner Chamod Battage claimed four wick­ets to put Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers in a strong po­si­tion over the West In­dies Acad­e­my at the close of play on the first day of the sec­ond un­of­fi­cial ‘Test’ in Sri Lan­ka on Mon­day.

The West In­dies Acad­e­my were propped up by half-cen­turies by Shaqkere Par­ris and cap­tain Ri­val­do Clarke, but they got lit­tle oth­er help from the oth­er bats­men and were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed for 231 in 67.5 overs at the Mahin­da Ra­japak­sha In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um.

Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers then made a sol­id re­sponse to reach 37 with­out loss to end the day trail­ing by 194 runs.

Medi­um pac­er Nisala Abeyratne got the home side off to a bril­liant start by bowl­ing open­ers Damel Eve­lyn and Jo­hann Je­re­mi­ah for four and eight re­spec­tive­ly, to leave them wob­bling on 13 for two.

Maven­dra Dindyal made just nine be­fore be­com­ing the first of Battage’s vic­tims and when pac­er Dinu­ra Kalu­pa­hana dis­missed Giovonte De­Peiza for five, the Acad­e­my was strug­gling at 37 for four.

Par­ris and Clarke came to their side’s res­cue by adding 120 runs for the fifth wick­et to take them to a rel­a­tive­ly com­fort­able po­si­tion of 157 for four.

But just when the pair looked set to push on, Battage struck a cru­cial blow by hav­ing Clarke caught be­hind for 57 off 70 balls.

Nathan Ed­ward joined Par­ris at the crease and con­tin­ued the Acad­e­my’s re­cov­ery, with the two shar­ing a 53-run stand to car­ry them past the 200-mark un­til Ed­ward was dis­missed for 28 by Asitha Wan­ni­nayake.

Par­ris was on the verge of scor­ing a well-de­served cen­tu­ry, but fell ag­o­nis­ing­ly short when he was dis­missed for 99 by left-arm spin­ner Shak­thi Udara. In all he faced 195 de­liv­er­ies and hit five fours and one six in his four and a half hours stay at the crease.

Once he was dis­missed, Battage and Udara pol­ished off the tail with the last four wick­ets falling for just 12 runs.

Battage fin­ished with fig­ures of 4-51, while there were two wick­ets apiece for Abeyratne (2-38) and Udara (2-61).

Left to face sev­en chal­leng­ing overs, Sri Lan­ka’s open­ers Pulin­du Per­era and Ravin­du Ras­an­tha nav­i­gat­ed the pe­ri­od with­out los­ing a wick­et to cut in­to the Acad­e­my’s lead.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

WEST IN­DIES ACAD­E­MY 231 in 67.5 overs (Shaqkere Par­ris 99, Ri­val­do Clarke 57, Nathan Ed­ward 28; Chamod Battage 4-51, Nisala Abeyratne 2-38, Shak­thi Udara 2-61).

SRI LAN­KA EMERG­ING PLAY­ERS 37-0 in sev­en overs (Pulin­du Per­era 13 not out).

Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers trail West In­dies Acad­e­my by 194 runs with 10 wick­ets re­main­ing.