Galle continues to be a happy hunting ground for Pakistan's seam bowlers. Twelve months after Wasim Akram, Abdul Razzaq and Waqar Younis bowled out Sri Lanka to win a three-match Test series, Irfan Fazil, Pakistan A's fastest bowler, overwhelmed Sri Lanka A's batsmen on the first day of the final unofficial Test Match.
Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, there can be no excuses. Unlike last year when the pitch was tailor made for Pakistan's bowlers, today's surface was devoid of live grass and pedestrian in pace. Sri Lanka A wasted the advantage of winning the toss and were bowled out for just 141 in 59.2 overs.
Irfan Fazil grabbed six Sri Lankan wickets for just 38 runs to record his best ever first class bowling analysis. The 19-year-old bowled three spells in all, but was most destructive in his final two-over burst after tea, in which he clean bowled three batsmen with fast reverse swinging yorkers, straight out of the Waqar Younis school of toe crushers.
The 19-year-old has played one Test Match, against Sri Lanka last year in Karachi, but on the evidence of this tour he will be soon playing again for the senior side. An enthusiastic cricketer, forever pestering the Press Box for bowling statistics, he generates his pace from a wonderfully rhythmical long run-up and classically side ways on action. The result is a 90mph fast bowler that swings the new ball out and the new ball in.
Sri Lanka at least fought back in the evening by taking three top-order wickets. If Prasanna Jayawardene, widely considered the best wicket keeper in Sri Lanka, had grasped a difficult one-handed chance off Hasan Raza, they could even ended have the day in the ascendancy. As it was Pakistan were well placed on 75 for three at the close of play.
Earlier, Avishka Gunawardene had single handedly held Sri Lanka's batting together for the second match in succession. Still sore this morning from a match winning unbeaten 82 in the Mercantile Cricket Tournament yesterday, he pummeled a belligerent 53 from 66 balls. He would have scored more too had Raza not shrewdly plugged his chief scoring area, the deep point boundary, right from the start of his innings.
Unfortunately for Sri Lanka he swung lazily through the line of Danish Kaneria's first ball of the match to be caught at cover on the stroke of lunch. Sri Lanka's last eight wickets fell for 70 runs.
Raza brought Imran Fazil back into the attack soon after the interval for a four-over burst, in which he claimed the wickets of Jeeantha Kulatunga and Chamara Silva. Kulatunga skewed a catch to backward point as he tried to cut a wide delivery and Silva, who faced 75 balls for his nine runs, was clean bowled as he shouldered arms to a straight fast delivery. Sri Lanka were 103 for five.
Malintha Warnapura, one of seven changes to the Sri Lankan side that played in Colombo last week, then added 15 runs in 43 minutes for the sixth wicket with Jayawardene, before being caught behind off Yasir Arafat. Irfan Fazil then returned after tea to mop up the tail in style.
© CricInfo
| Teams | Sri Lanka. |
| Players/Umpires | Irfan Fazil, Avishka Gunawardene. |
| Tours | Pakistan A in Sri Lanka |
| Scorecard | 3rd Unofficial Test: Sri Lanka 'A' v Pakistan 'A', 25-28 June 2001 |
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