Twitter Reactions: Dickwella and Gunaratne saves Sri Lanka from another humiliation

The current Sri Lankan team is not the same as they once were. With the retirement of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, they have gone through a massive overhaul. The condition is such that around a week ago, they lost an ODI series against Zimbabwe. Trailing 2-1 in the series, the red shirts made a great comeback and sealed the 5-match series by a margin of 3-2.

But the Lankan lions have won the only Test match that was played at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, owing to their batters. Like the one-dayers, the longest format of the game was also closely contested between the two teams. Zimbabwe put up a fighting total of 356 after winning the toss. Sri Lanka replied with 346, thereby handing a slim lead of 10 runs to the visitors. Zimbabwe’s fight in the second innings was even better as they managed to score 377 runs.

Sikandar Raza scored his maiden century and composed a brilliant knock of 127. 388 appeared too big a target for Sri Lanka to chase. But they have finally got the monkey off their back and has pulled off a good batting display. Everybody chipped in with crucial contributions but the majority of the credit must be given to Niroshan Dickwella and Asela Gunaratne. At 203/6, Sri Lanka was inching towards another humiliation.

But Dickwella and Gunaratne managed to do something which Root & Co. couldn’t do yesterday. They hung in there and cemented a good partnership. By the time Dickwella went back to the dressing room, the game was all but over for Zimbabwe. The wicketkeeper scored 81 runs and Gunaratne added 80 runs to prevent another humiliation which was coming the way of the Lankans.

Twitterati applauded the Lankan duo for their firm resilience. Gunaratne and Dickwella showed what exactly most of the batters are missing nowadays, the ability to stand in the middle for long hours and not throw away their wicket recklessly.

Here are some tweets regarding the match