Sri Lanka Vs Australia 1st Test: Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Swepson and Usman Khawaja star for Australia on Day 1
With 13 wickets falling on the first day, Australia looks a little ahead at the stumps of day 1. The day was dominated by spinners, as expected. Sri Lanka is left with 114 runs in the bank to ensure that visitors don't grab a big lead from their first inning
Nathan Lyon of AustraliaEight wickets for two Australian spinners to restrict the host to 212
On winning the toss, Sri Lanka rightly opted to bat first but couldn't capitalise much on the decision. The team got a stable and decent start from the openers, Pathum Nissanka and Dimuth Karunaratne. However, skipper Pat Cummins got the first breakthrough in the form of Pathum Nissanka (23). Kusal Mendis (3) lost his wicket while playing a loose shot to Mitchell Starc. What followed next was the spinners' show, as Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Swepson took the remaining eight wickets. With today's five-for, Nathan Lyon accomplished his 20th five-wicket haul in a Test match. Amidst the collapse of Sri Lankan batters, Niroshan Dickwella's counterattacking 59-ball 58 steadied the team but again failed to make it big. Australian spinners thus successfully restricted hosts to 212 in mere 59 overs.
Ramesh Mendis strikes early; Usman Khawaja looks to anchor the inning.
In response to the first-inning score of Sri Lanka, David Warner and Usman Khawaja opened for Australia. They amassed 47 runs in 9 overs as the bowlers bowled poor lines and lengths with no pressure on batters. While Usman Khawaja looked steady, playing his knock slowly, David Warner looked to blazing runs and replicated Dickwella's attacking style. But David Warner, looking to smash every ball, lost his wicket in an LBW to an arm ball by Ramesh Mendis and thus got dismissed at 25. Mendis soon took Marnus Labuschagne for 13, whereas Steven Smith (6) lost his wickets in a terrible mix-up runout. All this while, Usman Khawaja tried anchoring the line-up and remained unbeaten at 47. Australia stands at 98/3, trailing by 114 runs now.
The test match doesn't look to go on for five days, especially looking at the help spinners get from the pitch. If Australia manages to bat well on Day 2, they might gain momentum for the rest of the series and give an idea about who will have the edge in the series.