New Zealand v Sri Lanka 1st Test Review: Visitors go down to swing as New Zealand wins it easy

405 had to be a daunting task, but the old ball was not expected to do much. Dinesh Chandimal and skipper Angelo Mathews scored freely and never looked bogged down by the task in hand. But the beauty of Test cricket was once again to be seen, as New Zealand’s Neil Wagner ran in hard and bowled the short pitch stuff. Doing things he knows best and repeating the same time and again.

Wagner’s short ball tactics finally paid off when Mathews, after leaving two previous deliveries to go past his ribs, tried to play a similar one but this time, the Kiwi pacer pitched the ball up. The ball went jetting in between his pads to kiss the middle timber with force, which was something to be seen.

Subdued into a blocking mindset, he padded up to a delivery from the left-arm spinner Santner that went on with the arm and was adjudged lbw as he did not offer a shot. After a partnership of 56, Mathews and Chandimal had fallen with the numbers reading 165. Southee took two deliveries to shell out with the new ball, swinging it back into Vithanage from over the wicket, hitting the batsman’s pads. Until then Vithanage had played an entertaining innings, a run-a-ball 38, full of strokes.

Trent Boult picked a couple of wickets while Southee registered one after the threatening 56 runs stand between Mathews and Chandimal that promised to give a fight. Neil Wagner scalped two wickets for 56 runs, but the damage was more than what the scorecard reads. Spinner Santner was once again impressive, as he chipped in with two wickets on a day where the ball was swinging and hurrying on. Bracewell wrapped up the 122-run win with a safe caught and bowl as Sri Lanka lost the sight of the shore, getting wrapped up for 282 in 95.2 overs.

Brendon McCullum’s men will be happy with an impressive outing, having ticked all the boxes while Sri Lanka can take heart from the fact that the boys fought for 200 plus overs of hard and fast stuff.

Brief score:

New Zealand – 431 and 267/3 (Latham 109; Herath 2/62)

Sri Lanka – 294 and 282 (Chandimal 58; Mendis 46; Southee 3/52)

New Zealand won by 122 runs

Man of the Match: Martin Guptill (New Zealand)