Rangana Herath rattles West Indies batting

Sri Lankan left-arm spinner Rangana Herath bagged 10 wickets in the first Test match featuring Sri Lanka vs. West Indies. He took 6 wickets for 68 runs in the first innings and 4 for 79 in the second. Sri Lanka scored 484 runs in their first innings with opening batsman Dimuth Karunaratne scoring 186 and number four Dinesh Chandimal scoring 151. Captain Angelo Matthews scored 48.

Jerome Taylor picked up two wickets for 65 runs, Kemar Roach 1 for 57, Marlon Samuels 1 for 84, Jason Holder 1 for 36, Shannon Gabriel 1 for 76 and Devendra Bishoo 4 for 143 from 40.3 overs.

WEST INDIES BOWLED OUT FOR 251 AND 227

Darren Bravo scored 50 in the West Indies first innings and Jerome Taylor 31 from 31 balls. In the West Indies second innings, Jermaine Blackwood blasted away at the Sri Lankan bowling scoring 92 runs with 10 four and 3 sixes. Bravo scored 31 and opener Kraigg Braithwaite 34. Sri Lanka won this Test match by an inning and 6 runs.

WEST INDIES POOR BOWLING PERFORMANCE

West Indies Test Captain Jason Holder failed to use his quicker bowlers much more. Roach bowled 19 overs, Taylor 20, Shannon Gabriel 20 and Holder 21. The two spinners Marlon Samuels and Bishoo bowled 27 overs and 40.3 overs respectively, these two bowlers were not appropriately used. Samuels should not have allowed to bowl 27 overs when there are four seamers on the team. Roach and Taylor bowled a total of 39 overs and Bishoo sent down 40.3 overs. Too much pressure was put on Bishoo while the other bowlers stood idle.

BOWLERS MUST BE KEPT BUSY

Bowlers are chosen in a team to participate meaningfully and share their skills. During the first Test match, Captain Holder failed to fully execute the power of his bowling. Roach and Taylor toured Sri Lanka before and these experienced bowlers should have the knowledge on how to pickup wickets. West Indies bowling fell very short of expectations and the dropped catches did not help.

DENESH RAMDIN CONTINUEs TO FAIL

Axed West Indies Captain Ramdin must be given a significant responsibility and that is batting at the fourth position. Some stability is needed in the top order. When the opening batsmen are failing, it is important that the other batsmen to follow perform credible. Bravo is struggling at number three but he has to fight his battle and win it in that position. No more experimenting with that position. The experienced Samuels should be moved to number five and Ramdin at number four.