‘Ambidespack’ Tharindu Buena comida para Sri Lanka como Shanto y Mushciqur cientos de cientos

Angelo Mathews farewell Test. That’s what the contest between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh was being billed as. On what should have been a joyous occasion, the visitors turned everything sad. Heaps of runs were scored and just three wickets fell. Now, had Sri Lanka been the one’s batting, this would’ve been good. But that wasn’t that case.

Bangladesh won the toss and opted to bowl. And things didn’t do their way. Asitha Fernando sent Anamul Haque back for a golden duck with a beautiful outswinger and then making his Test debut at the age of 29, Tharindu Ratnayake got two wickets in his first five overs.

The ambidextrous orthodox spinner used his right-arm spin to get Shadman Islam and Mominul Haque caught at first slip. All was going well, for Sri Lanka and Mathews. Bangladesh was 45/3. You couldn’t have started the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025-27 on a better note.

But things didn’t go so well in the remaining two session. Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto was joined by veteran Mushfiqur Rahim in the middle and they batted the entire day. They played 73.5 overs and scored 247 runs together. Both got hundreds. There were no dropped catches and no umpire’s call decisions.

These were chanceless knocks. And the reason why Sri Lankan bowlers weren’t able to create many chances was due to the Galle pitch aiding the batters a little bit more than usual. The turn on the first day was around 3 degrees, which is about 25% less (4 degree) than the average turn the pitch in Galle generates. Prabath Jayasuriya, who was been Sri Lanka’s best bowler at home, went wicketless.

While one can say out the ball wasn’t doing as it usually does in Galle, but the bowling wasn’t great. The pitch was slow and more often than not, they were either bowling too full or short. This gave Shanto and Mushfiqur enough time to negate any threat. One can’t forget that pitches in Bangladesh are slow turners as well. So, both are well equipped to bat in such conditions.

At stumps, Shanto was unbeaten at 136 and Mushfiqur at 105. Ratnayake bowled more than 1/3 of the overs (32 from 90) while Prabath wasn’t far behind, 29 overs.