Sri Lanka tour of New Zealand:Wagner guided NZ to 122-run victory

Tags: Sri Lanka tour of New Zealand 2015-16, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Martin James Guptill, Kane Stuart Williamson, Lokuge Dinesh Chandimal, Frank Dimuth Madushanka Karunaratne, Test match

Published on: Dec 15, 2015

New Zealand have opened their home summer with an emphatic win over Sri Lanka by 122-run in the first Test

New Zealand 431 (Guptill 156, Williamson 88, McCullum 75, Pradeep 4-112) and 267 for 3 dec (Latham 109*, Williamson 71) beat Sri Lanka 294 (Karunaratne 84, Chandimal 83) and 282 (Chandimal 58) by 122 runs

New Zealand have opened their home summer with an emphatic win over Sri Lanka by 122-run in the first Test at the University Oval in Dunedin.

Chandimal and Mathews came out to bat for Sri Lanka on day 5 and hold the firm tightly and it was looking threatening for New Zealand that the pair can enforce draw here. The pair put on 56 runs for the fourth wicket until Neil Wagner removed skipper Angelo Mathews. The wicket of Mathews opened the gate of victory for the hosts. They took last seven wickets in a span of 24 overs on either side of lunch. Sri Lanka were in the place of comfort when Tim Southee and Trent Boult were bowling on start of the day. Chandimal punished almost everything which was short and wide and played few glorious cover drives too. That’s how he reached his half century. On the other hands, Angelo Mathews relied more on soft hands and played with the straight bat. But as soon as Wagner was introduced on the attack, a kind of panic was created among the batsmen. Wagner gave no width and no opportunity to get on the front foot. He bowled the short deliveries with pace and attacked the body of the batsmen with close in fielders. Wagner bowled two short deliveries to Mathews where he moved towards off side to let the ball go past his ribs. He tried to play the third ball in the same manner and Wagner bowled a full delivery which crashed into the inside of his front pad, shot between his legs and flattened middle stump. The wicket of Mathews affected the approach of Chandimal as well and he started to defend everything. Chandimal padded a ball from left arm spinner Santner which came in with the angle and he was adjudged leg before for not offering any shot. At this time, Sri Lanka had lost their five wickets for 165 runs and the target of 405 was too tuff for the batsmen to come.

Kithuruwan Vithanage and Milinda Siriwardana joined hands for Sri Lanka and started playing positively. They hit boundaries at will and put pressure on the hosts, but the new ball done the trick for New Zealand. Southee took two deliveries to strike with the new ball, swinging it back into Vithanage from over the wicket, hitting the left-hander's pads. Then Trent Boult struck in his third and fifth over of the afternoon session. He drawn an edge from Rangana Herath and having Siriwardana caught at short cover. At last, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 282 runs.

The two teams now move on to Seddon Park, Hamilton, for the second and final Test which is starting from Friday, 18th of December.

Player of the Match: Martin Guptill

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