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ScorecardBhuvneshwar Kumar rallied with the tail to leave Central Zone within 10 runs of Duleep Trophy final with one day to go•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

In a sustained fightback, Bhuvneshwar Kumar carried Central Zone to within 10 runs of making the Duleep Trophy final with his maiden first-class hundred that was largely made in the company of the tail in Hyderabad.Bhuvneshwar, the 21-year old Uttar Pradesh allrounder, came in at No. 8 with Central Zone trailing North Zone by 232. Thirty-two runs later, he lost his partner, wicketkeeper Mahesh Rawat, who had made 71, and had put on 102 for the sixth wicket with captain Mohammad Kaif (63).At that stage, North Zone were three wickets away from a place in the final, with a comfortable lead of 200. But Bhuvneshwar found support from all the following batsmen – Praveen Kumar, Murali Kartik and Rituraj Singh. He added 42 and 49 for the eighth and ninth wickets with Praveen (27) and Kartik (22).Central Zone were still trailing by 109, though, when legspinner Amit Mishra had Kartik caught by Yuvraj Singh to claim his fourth wicket. But North were to end the day in an ultimately futile search for the last wicket, as Bhuvneshwar and Rituraj thwarted them for more than 100 minutes in a partnership that is now worth an even 100 in just 21.5 overs.In an innings that had now lasted more than four hours, Bhuvneshwar faced 225 deliveries, and struck 12 fours and three sixes. He batted smartly with the tail, even refusing three singles when he was on 99 to shield the last man Rituraj. North Zone did not help their cause by setting extremely defensive fields for Bhuvneshwar. During the closing moments of the day’s play, they had as many as nine men in the deep, allowing Bhuvneshwar to effortlessly farm the strike. Rituraj played his role by denying North Zone off the 38 deliveries he faced.North Zone were also generous with the extras, bowling 25 no-balls. Fifteen of those came from Mishra alone, who should have been called many more times had the umpire seen that he was cutting the return crease repeatedly with his back foot.
ScorecardSouth Zone hit back after conceding a small first-innings lead in Visakhapatnam as they picked up six East Zone wickets in the second innings to increase the possibility of the game having an outright result on the fourth and final day tomorrow.Natraj Behera, the East Zone captain, was the only batsman to resist South Zone. Behera made 60 before becoming the first of allrounder Stuart Binny’s two victims. Binny stunned East Zone four deliveries after dismissing Behera when he had the first-innings centurion Saurabh Tiwary caught for a duck. East Zone were reduced to 98 for 4 from 98 for 2. They lost two more wickets by stumps, leaving Biplab Samantray as the last recognized batsman to add to an overall lead of 152.Earlier, South Zone added 110 to their overnight score of 134 for 5 with captain Vinay Kumar making 61 at No. 8 and putting on 65 for the seventh wicket with Amit Verma (49).

Bert Sutcliffe, one of the finest cricketers of any generation that New Zealand has produced, died in Auckland at the South Auckland Hospice at 1am today.Sutcliffe, 77, had been ill with emphysema for several years and had been in declining health over recent months and was recently diagnosed with cancer.New Zealand Cricket has honoured Sutcliffe’s place in the game in this country by naming its purpose-built ground at its Cricket Academy, the Bert Sutcliffe Oval. It was the venue of last summer’s CricInfo Women’s World Cup.NZC also awards the Bert Sutcliffe Medal annually to those it deems have made outstanding service to cricket over a lifetime. This year’s winner was Sutcliffe’s captain on the 1949 tour of England, Walter Hadlee.It was that 1949 tour that highlighted Sutcliffe’s place as one of the finest left-handed batsmen to have graced the game, and as one of New Zealand’s greatest batsmen.A measure of his impact on that tour was the 2627 runs he scored at an average of 59.70. At that time, only Don Bradman had scored more on a tour of England.Sutcliffe’s tour did not start well and he later said that it was the chance to have watched his great friend, and only genuine rival for the honour of New Zealand’s finest left-hander, Martin Donnelly in action, coupled with the advice received from the great technician in the New Zealand game, Merv Wallace, that saw him come right during the final two-thirds of the tour.Members of the England team were well aware of Sutcliffe’s capabilities. During their tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1946/47, they had seen him score a century in each innings for Otago.MCC captain Wally Hammond commented on Sutcliffe’s first innings effort which saw him out for 197, “He did not merely stay at the wicket; he hit, and hit hard all round the wicket, and I had to gesture the fieldsmen out into the deep for him.”I thought he was going to get a double century as his score mounted past 150, 175, 190; but the Fates launched a veritable thunderbolt from the hand of [Bill] Edrich, and the ball, with Bill sailing in behind it, was quietly played forward – only to be caught by the bowler who had hurled himself up to the batting crease to do it. He looked comically sorry as he stared at his hand; I think we all felt we should have liked Bert Sutcliffe to put up the 200 now he was so near.”Of his second innings century Hammond said, “They gave him greeting when he passed his hundred in that second innings, and so did we; and how well he deserved it for a chanceless, brilliant piece of batting, as good as any I have seen!”The benefits of his tour of England in 1949 were soon evident back at home in the following summer when he scored the first of two triple centuries in his career, the first was 355 for Otago against Auckland.Then three summers later he hit 385 for Otago against Canterbury, a world record score by a left-handed batsmen which stood until it was beaten by Brian Lara when scoring his 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994.Sutcliffe dominated the domestic scene, in which there were only four teams during the earliest years of his career, in a way few players have achieved.If there was one moment in his career more memorable than several outstanding contenders, it had to be Boxing Day at Johannesburg in 1953 when the New Zealanders were coming to terms with the tragedy of New Zealand’s worst rail disaster at home when 151 people died on Christmas Eve when the overnight North Island express train ploughed into a river after a bridge had been washed out.Original news of the disaster was worsened when one of the team’s bowlers, Bob Blair, learned his fiancee had perished in the tragedy.New Zealand were playing the second Test against South Africa and Neil Adcock woke up in a mean mood. New Zealand were put through a fast bowling mill and Sutcliffe was hit on the head and taken to hospital.Forty years after the event when interviewed, the memory of what happened next still brought a pause from Sutcliffe, a wipe of the eye and a lump in the throat.Sutcliffe went back out to bat swathed in bandages and with Blair not attending the ground, everyone started to leave the field when the ninth wicket fell.Sutcliffe recalled the moment: “It was quite an unreal situation. We all started to leave the field at what we thought was the end of the innings and there was Bob coming out of the tunnel to bat. He didn’t need to do it – we had saved the follow-on – but when he left the hotel to come to the ground he didn’t know that. You don’t expect a guy to appear like that.”The whole atmosphere was unbelievable and you could sense the crowd asking themselves: ‘How would we feel if that happened to us?’ There was a stunned silence.”Bob was all right till he looked at the other guys, who were crying. I said to him: ‘For goodness’ sake, what are you doing here? Throw the bat at the ball and get out.’ He played at the first couple of balls and didn’t know where they were. Then he hit a six and the crowd went wild. When we came back at the end of the innings they were jumping up and down cheering.”Typically, Sutcliffe down-played his own role in proceedings. He hit 80, in a superb attacking innings and shared the world record for most runs in an over, 25, which was only beaten by another New Zealander Craig McMillan three weeks ago when he scored 26.Sutcliffe continued: “We started to get dressed to go out field, but Boney [captain Geoff Rabone] came up to us and asked what we thought we were doing. We replied we were going out to field, but he said there were a couple of other guys who would do that.”A local bloke came along with a full bottle of whisky and asked us if we thought we could use it. We got two chairs and put them under the showers and just sat there. We got through the best part of a bottle in half an hour. It was just a reaction to what we had been through – we were the best part sober at the end,” Sutcliffe said.On the tour to India and Pakistan in 1955/56 he broke the New Zealand Test record for a highest score when reaching 230 against but took so much out of himself on the tour he was unable to complete the West Indies series and missed the chance of playing in New Zealand’s first Test victory.He never played in a winning Test side. He toured England three times in 1949, 1958 and 1965, the last occasion when coming out of retirement. He toured India and Pakistan and South Africa playing a total of 42 Tests in which he scored 2727 runs at an average of 40.10. In his first-class career he totalled 17,447 runs at 47.41.Universally liked, his reputation was described best by two journalists who had a lengthy association with him.The first, Alan Mitchell of the New Zealand Press Association, noted: “Sutcliffe is a fine example of how success should be taken: modest, unassuming, imperturbable, helpful, with no trace of a swollen head.The second, R T ‘Dick’ Brittenden of The Press, said: “With all his successes … Sutcliffe never showed the slightest sign of conceit, or even of consciousness that he was a cut above the rest.”Bert Sutcliffe is survived by his wife Norma, son Gary and daughters Christine and Lynn.

Sri Lankan umpire Kumar Dharmasena has won the David Shepherd trophy for the Umpire of the Year at the ICC Awards ceremony in Colombo. It is the first time he has won this award.The other nominees were five-time winner Simon Taufel, three-time winner Aleem Dar, along with New Zealand’s Billy Bowden, England’s Richard Kettleborough and Australia’s Rodney Tucker.”This award means a lot to me, after playing cricket for 12 years. It’s for the Sri Lankan umpires and the community who looked after my growth,” Dharmasena said after accepting his award from Graham Gooch. “Honestly, I feel I had a great year on and off the field and I feel having been a cricketer has helped me with my decision making as an umpire and to give better decisions.”The David Shepherd Trophy for ICC Umpire of the Year was voted on by the 10 current Test captains and the Elite Panel of ICC match referees and is partly based on the umpires’ performance statistics.Dharmasena, who made his international debut as an umpire in 2009, joined the Elite Panel in May 2011. In the voting period he stood in seven Tests and 13 ODIs.

Vernon Philander, the South Africa seamer, hopes to use his stint in the Caribbean Premier League as a means to break into South Africa’s limited-overs squads. Philander, set to play for Jamaica Tallawahs, has only played eight ODIs and seven T20s since making his international debut in 2007. Since his remarkable entry to Test cricket in 2011, he has been identified by the selectors as a Test specialist.”I have obviously not played a lot of white-ball cricket for South Africa,” Philander was quoted as saying in . “This tournament is a chance for me to step up in the shortest form of the game and I am pretty excited about it.”I back myself in the shorter formats and want the opportunity at international level so if I can put my name on the board then that is what I want to do.”Philander took a five-for in his Test debut against Australia at Newlands in 2011 and within five months became the second-fastest to 50 Test wickets, in seven games. Philander has thrived in helping bowling conditions at home in South Africa, and in away tours to New Zealand, England and Australia. Popular opinion called for his inclusion for the Champions Trophy squad, but he wasn’t selected.Philander is currently representing Kent in the Friends Life t20 and has taken nine wickets in seven games. He understands the challenges of bowling in the West Indies, where the conditions may not be as helpful.”The conditions will pose challenges and as I have not played in the West Indies before, that is something I will have to get used to,” he said. “It will be a case of getting used to the decks and bowling up front as quickly as possible.”He said he wasn’t looking as far ahead as the World T20 in 2014 in Bangladesh. “Obviously I would love to play in it but my first priority has to be to do well in the CPL. If I can do that, make my mark and make a name for myself, I will be in a much better position for selection, but the CPL is the first thing to get right.”

ScorecardNain Abidi struck an important 45 before Pakistan’s bowlers all contributed to defend 116•Getty Images

Pakistan claimed their first victory over England in any form of the women’s game with a nerve-jangling one-run win in the second T20 at Loughborough. Having been comprehensively beaten earlier in the day, Pakistan fought tenaciously to defend what seemed a below-par total as Arran Brindle narrowly failed to steer England home when 13 runs were required off the last six balls.Brindle, coming in at No. 8, put on 39 in 34 deliveries – England’s biggest partnership of the match – with Jenny Gunn, before Bismah Maroof struck. Gunn’s departure brought in the England captain, Charlotte Edwards, batting well down the order, but she could only make 2 before being dismissed off the final ball of the penultimate over.Anya Shrubsole was caught off next delivery, as Maroof took responsibility for the final over, but they succeeded in getting Brindle on strike. She halved the deficit with a blow for six but, with three needed to win off the last ball, Brindle was run out attempting to come back for a second. The damage had been done earlier by Sumaiya Siddiqi and Sadia Yousuf, as England slid disastrously from 28 for 0 to 52 for 6 in 6.1 overs.Pakistan could only muster 75 from their 20 overs in the morning and they looked in trouble again, when falling to 40 for 4. Nain Abidi and Sana Mir combined for 55 at almost a run-a-ball but Abidi fell five runs short of a half-century at the start of the 18th over. Mir continued to work the ball into gaps, running all but four of her unbeaten 31, and Pakistan’s total of 116 was just about enough come the final reckoning.

ScorecardWayne Madsen made his 14th first-class hundred•Getty Images

This was Derbyshire’s day by some distance, the achievement of Wayne Madsen and Shivnarine Chanderpaul in setting a partnership record against Surrey underpinned by Richard Johnson’s maiden half-century for the county, but there was at least one encouraging subtext for Surrey, who are no closer to breaking their duck for the Championship season.It came in the form of five wickets for Chris Tremlett, who had not taken that many in a single first-class innings since he did so for England against Sri Lanka in June 2011, and never before for Surrey. The 6ft 7ins fast bowler took the wicket that captured the Ashes in Australia in January 2011 but has been ravaged by injuries in the interim, requiring operations for back and knee problems. His return to Surrey’s Championship side last month was only his second appearance in the competition in 21 months.Surrey are nursing him back carefully, which is understandable in the circumstances. England are monitoring his progress but are unlikely to call on him any time soon, unless there is an exceptional run of injuries. At 31, and with a Test record of 49 wickets at 26.75, Tremlett is eager to believe that he has another Ashes series ahead of him but if he is to face Australia again you suspect it will be next winter rather than this summer. Mindful, perhaps, that he broke down after one comeback match last summer, precipitating further surgery in September, he accepts that patience is vital.”I’d like to get back to where I was before the injuries and England is at the back of my mind but it is a matter of not getting ahead of myself,” he said. “I feel I’m going in the right direction. It is nice to get five wickets but the important thing is bowling overs and hoping my body stays strong.”Tremlett, who had bowled Chesney Hughes with his fifth delivery on Thursday, did the most damage with the second new ball as Wes Durston and Ben Slater, a left-hander making his Derbyshire debut, edged deliveries that left them off the pitch. Tremlett bowled tailender Mark Turner and finished off the Derbyshire innings when wicketkeeper Johnson’s fine 72 ended with a catch at first slip.Yet in the context of the day, it was a minor victory for Surrey. If there was an opportunity to acquire some impetus as another year of under-achievement beckons, it was in this match, against a side struggling to make the transition to Division One cricket, particularly with Ricky Ponting in the dressing room and offering encouragement from the slip cordon.However, they are a stubborn bunch, Derbyshire, unwilling to accept that they are destined merely to be whipping boys, determined that promotion will be a genuine learning experience. Resuming at 232 for 2, they built so handsomely on Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s first-day century as to almost double their score.The Guyanese batsman had been labouring with a heavy cold for most of his innings and he was less fluent yesterday morning, although there was handsome consolation. Wayne Madsen, equally impressive as the two built a partnership ultimately worth 265 runs, outscored his partner and was setting his own targets high when Chanderpaul was surprised by a short ball from Stuart Meaker and sent the ball looping off the glove to Ponting in the gully.Madsen went on to reach 152, picking up boundaries with impressive fluency, 17 in all. Surrey’s bowlers again could not hit a testing line and length frequently enough to build pressure and Madsen, having looked so comfortable, was furious with himself when he failed to read a ball angled in by Meaker that took his off stump.It left Derbyshire at a potentially difficult moment, 336 for 6 having been 294 for 2. Had they fallen away it would not have been an unusual development. In the event, they failed to take all the batting points available but will set that disappointment against a strong position at the halfway stage of the match.Johnson batted solidly and took few risks, aided first by David Wainwright in a stand of 59 for the seventh wicket and latterly by some eager and enterprising batting from the tail. His 72 equalled his career best and reaffirmed Derbyshire’s self-belief.It was further enhanced when Madsen ran out Rory Burns with a stunning direct hit almost from the boundary at long-off. Mark Footitt worked up a fierce pace and Vikram Solanki, going in ahead of Ponting at three, needed treatment after taking a blow to the body. The target to avoid the follow-on may feel a long way off when he and Arun Harinath resume.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has written to the BCCI, asking whether some Sri Lanka players could be released early from the ongoing IPL to prepare for next month’s Champions trophy in England, according to SLC secretary Nishantha Ranatunga.The Sri Lanka board had been mulling whether to recall some of the underperforming players – who are not central to their IPL teams’ plans at the moment – to allow them to play in a practice series. Now, after formally asking the Indian board, SLC is awaiting a response on the same, Ranatunga said.”We have written to the BCCI on Monday and are waiting to hear from them whether some of the players can be released to play in the one-day triangular series, which SLC has organised as preparation for the Champions trophy,” said Ranatunga. “The BCCI must get through to the respective franchises and then get back to us on whether any of the players selected for England can be released if they are not picked for the IPL matches. We know the players have a contractual obligation to the IPL teams they represent, so it is left to the franchises to make a decision to release them.”Nine of the ten Sri Lankan players playing in the IPL are part of Sri Lanka’s 15-member squad for the Champions Trophy. Ajantha Mendis is the only Sri Lankan player in the IPL who is not part of the Champions Trophy squad.SLC had earlier expressed concerns over the poor form of the Sri Lanka players in the IPL, which has led to some of them being dropped by their teams, and Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews stepping down from the captaincy of Pune Warriors.Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka board had announced a domestic 50-overs tournament to be played in Pallekele between May 12 and 20. Of the three squads named for the tournament, one included the Sri Lanka team picked for the Champions trophy, minus the IPL players. “If the IPL players are released we will include them instead of the players selected to represent the Sri Lanka team in the triangular,” Ranatunga said.The other two sides in the tournament will be the Sri Lanka A team, also selected to tour the West Indies next month, and a Sri Lanka Combined side.Lahiru Thirimanne, Dinesh Chandimal, Rangana Herath, Nuwan Kulasekara, Shaminda Eranga and Chanaka Welegedara are the only players from the Champions Trophy squad, who currently figure in the Sri Lanka team named for the triangular series.

Match facts

May 2, 2013
Start time 1600 (1030 GMT)

Big Picture

Chennai Super Kings have been among the best travelers this IPL, winning all four of their away games, in addition to the four home wins. With eight wins and 16 points – four ahead of second-placed Royal Challengers Bangalore – Super Kings are all but certain of a place in the playoffs, having won six in a row. Their journey this year is in contrast to 2012, where they groped around in the darkness in the middle stages, before sneaking into the playoffs in a frenzy, helped along the way by a few other teams. In 2013, they have been remarkably consistent and that’s partly due to the fact that they have stuck with a core of players – six of them have played all ten games, while Michael Hussey and Chris Morris are a close second with nine. Against bottom-placed Pune Warriors, they went back to their tried and tested formula of starting slowly with the bat and then attacking. Warriors were batted out of the match.Super Kings can expect stiffer competition from the unpredictable Kings XI Punjab, who ran Mumbai Indians close on Monday in a tense chase. The result could have gone their way if it weren’t for the umpiring in the final over, when an above-waist high full toss wasn’t penalised by the umpires, denying them an extra ball and a run. Only four runs separated the teams in the end. It could also have been different had they sent Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar – both with proven track records as hitters – ahead of Manpreet Gony, who wasted three balls and didn’t score. They made a significant change at the top, dropping the out-of-form Adam Gilchrist, and handing the captaincy to David Hussey, who could continue in that role till the end of the tournament. Kings XI have lost their last two games, and need some wins to try and get in to the top four. Beating Super Kings in Chennai will be a challenge, but it’s not impossible, as Mumbai and Warriors have done earlier.David Miller has been Kings XI’s standout performer•BCCI

Form guide

Chennai Super Kings WWWWW
Kings XI Punjab LLWWL

Players to watch

Mohit Sharma was among five uncapped (IPL) players picked by Super Kings this year, and like Gony in IPL 2008, has turned out to be one of the emerging players. The Haryana seamer has nine wickets in seven games and has been miserly too, with an economy rate of just six.David Miller has been the pick of the overseas players for Kings XI with 200 runs in five games with two fifties, behind the top scorer Mandeep Singh (228). Miller’s clean hitting stood out in the game against Mumbai, there were five sixes in his 56.

Stats and trivia

• R Ashwin’s bowling average against Kings XI (44) is his worst among teams in the IPL. His strike rate of 40.50 against KXIP is also his worst among teams in the IPL
• Ravindra Jadeja is 29 runs short of conceding 1000 runs in the IPL. He will be only the fifth player to have scored and conceded more than 1000 runs in the tournament. The others are Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Irfan Pathan and Shane Watson
• Albie Morkel is 32 runs short of conceding 2000 runs in the IPL. He will be only the fourth bowler and the first overseas player to have conceded 2000 or more in the tournament
• Suresh Raina has been dismissed by Piyush Chawla three times in the IPL. The only other bowler to have dismissed Raina on more occasions is Dwayne Bravo, now Raina’s team-mate.

Tim Bresnan will play his first match for nearly three months when he makes his comeback for Yorkshire in a three-day friendly against Lancashire at Headingley on Tuesday.Bresnan underwent elbow surgery after England’s one-day series in India to try and overcome a problem that plagued him over the previous 12 months following a first operation on the joint in late 2011.Since that initial operation Bresnan had struggled to recapture the form that made him a key part of England’s rise to the No. 1 Test spot in 2010 where he impressed against India and Australia. During the Test series in India late last year, he did not take a wicket in his two appearances in Ahmedabad and Nagpur.He could yet come into contention for the Test series against New Zealand next month, although he is more important to England’s Champions Trophy planning where he can add balance to the side at No. 7.”It has been a while since I played,” he said. “I’m feeling good and looking forward to playing against Lancashire. I have been bowling in the nets and the elbow has responded well. I feel I’m getting back to my best. For me it is now playing as much cricket as possible with a view to playing well for Yorkshire and ultimately breaking back into the England team.”Bresnan is one of a trio of England bowlers at various stages of returning from injury lay-offs. Graeme Swann, who underwent a similar elbow procedure to Bresnan after being ruled out of the Test series in New Zealand, is hopeful of resuming bowling in the next few weeks while Chris Tremlett has recovered from an injury-hit 2012 that restricted him to one Championship match.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsKithuruwan Vithanage helped himself to a brisk fifty on debut•AFP

Three things are more or less taken for granted in a Galle Test – a Mahela Jayawardene century, a bagful of wickets for Rangana Herath and a win for Sri Lanka. For a change, none of these happened. Jayawardene was forced out of the series to injury, a benign pitch got the better of Herath and Sri Lanka had to live with a high-scoring draw, which had a record-equalling eight centuries from both sides over five sapping days of Test cricket. No team looked like closing out the game, but Bangladesh walked away with a moral victory, breaking country records, which included their first-ever 600-plus total. It was also their first draw against Sri Lanka.A draw was a foregone conclusion by the fourth afternoon and it only needed a brain-freeze from the batsmen in either side to produce a result. The fifth-day pitch was so flat, the batsmen might as well have been batting on the swanky Southern Expressway a short distance from the ground. It was a chance to boost batting averages, which Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan did by scoring centuries. Kithuruwan Vithanage, denied an opportunity to bat in the first innings, took guard in his debut Test in a pressure-free scenario and made a brisk fifty. Sri Lanka enforced a surprise declaration shortly before the scheduled tea break, hoping to spark some life in the final session but Bangladesh saw off the final moments without much trouble, losing a wicket. The situation was pointless enough for the captains to call it off an hour before stumps.Sangakkara, returning from a finger injury, eased his way back with two centuries in the match. Dilshan helped himself to one too after missing out on the first innings, increasing the match century tally to eight, equaling the world record set by West Indies and South Africa in Antigua in 2005. There was not much turn and the bounce was consistent, making it easy for the batsmen to adapt quickly and build. Shahadat Hossain tried banging it in short to Sangakkara – like he did to dismiss Dimuth Karunaratne yesterday – who pulled with ease along the ground. Dilshan was prepared to use the crease to milk boundaries, punishing anything that was fractionally short.

Smart stats

• For only the second time, eight centuries have been scored in a single game. The previous occasion was in the West Indies-South Africa game in Antigua in 2004.

• The five centuries scored by Sri Lanka is their highest ever in a single match. They have scored four centuries in a game on three previous occasions.

• Kumar Sangakkara scored two centuries in a match for the first time. He becomes the fifth Sri Lankan player to score twin centuries in a Test.

• The average runs-per-wicket in the match (84.29) is the highest ever in a match in Galle surpassing the previous highest of 52.13 in the Sri Lanka-West Indies Test in 2010.

• The run-per-wicket (84.89) is the fourth-highest in a match in Sri Lanka. The highest is 106.35 in the Sri Lanka-India Test in Colombo in 1997.

• Tillakaratne Dilshan, who scored his 16th century, is now joint-fourth on the list of Sri Lankan batsmen with the most Test centuries.

• The 213-run stand between Sangakkara and Dilshan is the fifth-highest overall and the highest second-wicket stand for Sri Lanka against Bangladesh.

Sangakkara offered a half chance when he edged Abul Hasan past the diving Mushfiqur Rahim, who didn’t have slip fielders to support him. Sangakkara followed that up with a couple of exquisite drives past cover to hasten towards a century. Dilshan reached his landmark – his 16th Test century – first with a clip to square leg, while Sangakkara got to his 32nd century with a punch to mid-off. Sangakkara made twin centuries in a Test for the first time, the sixth such occasion a Sri Lankan batsman had done so. Incidentally, the previous batsman to do so was his partner Dilshan, also against Bangladesh, in 2009.Sangakkara fell shortly after lunch, pulling a short ball by Mahmudullah and taken neatly by Jahurul Islam falling to his right at short midwicket. Dilshan too fell going for an aggressive stroke, pulling Mahmudullah to deep square leg where Abul took the catch running to his left.The batsman who had the most to gain was Vithanage. Fresh from his century against the Bangladeshis in Matara, he began with a confident punch for four off Sohag Gazi wide of extra cover. He had the audacity to reverse-sweep for a four down to third man, an indication both of his confidence and of the flatness of the pitch. He played the conventional sweep as well, imparting a lot of power behind the shot. Bangladesh were going through the motions, giving their part-time bowlers like Nasir Hossain a go, as there was no point tiring out the frontline bowlers. Vithanage was hardly challenged, pulling a six over deep midwicket off Nasir as he approached his fifty. He was eventually bowled playing on to Mahmudullah, who picked up all three wickets with freebie short deliveries, much to amusement of the bowler himself and his captain. With no milestones left to chase, Angelo Mathews saw no point in batting on and declared giving Bangladesh an improbable 268 to chase in one session.The only surprise was the wicket of Anamul Haque, who misjudged the line from Shaminda Eranga, looked to defend rather late and chopped the ball onto the stumps. Jahurul and Mohammad Ashraful took the score to 70 and at 4pm, the Test was predictably called off.The Bangladesh Cricket Board had recently announced incentives for the team to draw Tests and take games into the fifth day. They achieved that, but this Test will be remembered for the lopsided contest between bat and ball – 1613 runs for just 19 wickets. Sri Lanka will hope for a more sporting surface at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, which hosts the second Test in four days’ time.