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Waqar Younis, the Pakistan coach, has said the role of fast bowlers is more important than spinners, even in subcontinental conditions where pitches are generally slower and conducive to spin. Australia have relied heavily on pace in this tournament, Kemar Roach bagged a six-for that included a hat-trick for West Indies against Netherlands and Lasith Malinga returned to the Sri Lankan side with a hat-trick against Kenya.”Not only World Cup but generally in cricket, the fast bowlers’s role is always bigger than the spinners,” Waqar said on the eve of Pakistan’s game against Canada. “In the subcontinent we start talking we need more spinners, I think out of 50, 30 overs are bowled by fast bowlers so their role is lot more important.”Pakistan, too, will be banking heavily on fast bowlers; they have five in their squad of 15 – Shoaib Akhtar, Junaid Khan, Abdul Razzaq, Wahab Riaz and Umar Gul. “We have seen here so far that fast bowlers have done a splendid job so we are preserving and making sure our fast bowlers are nice and ready and doing the right things at the right time.”Malinga missed the game against Pakistan, where Sri Lanka were beaten by 11 runs. Pakistan, batting first at the Premadasa, posted 277. “I can’t say Malinga would have made a huge difference against us but definitely he is one of the best bowlers in this tournament.”Malinga was lethal against the Kenya batsmen, who had no answers to his yorkers. He finished with a six-wicket haul and said he’d learnt the art watching Wasim Akram and Waqar. “Kenyans are not the toughest but still he bowled straight every time with the yorkers, it is pleasing to see because it reminds you of your own good days. As long as he doesn’t do it against us I am happy.Malinga’s slinging action, Waqar added, helped him generate reverse-swing, making him more threatening. “He has learnt by looking at me or Wasim but I also think that his action is such that it suits reverse-swing, which is the key. Everybody knows how to do it now, everybody knows how the ball goes, but not many people can do it.”He has a unique action, a slingy action which I had as well, that is why it is more effective. Commentators were explaining it right that the ball dips at the last second. That is key, especially with this white ball. When it gets greyish, in the evening it gets very difficult to sight it, especially with his slingy action. Never easy, ball dipping at the last second.”

Neither Rohit Sharma nor Morne van Wyk were supposed to be here. Yet both of them shone on Makhaya Ntini’s big day, his farewell.Rohit was a last-minute addition to the Indian touring party after Virender Sehwag was forced to miss the ODIs as a precautionary measure for his dodgy shoulder. Still, Rohit would have only been a back-up man had not a bruised, battered, but successful Gautam Gambhir not left for India. van Wyk only came in because Graeme Smith had another hand injury to tend to.However, the two adjusted the best to the slow and low conditions at the Moses Mabhida Stadium, scoring fine fifties in front of the biggest crowd gathered to see cricket in South Africa.Rohit did much as he does in Twenty20s. He didn’t look to hit the ball too hard, waiting for it to arrive and then lofting it square or straight. His driving on the slow track stood out. His knock set up India’s innings, after which Suresh Raina provided the important runs in the final few overs. If signs were to be looked for, these can’t be bad for a man trying to force his way back into the national side.”It was important to start on a good note,” Rohit said after the game. “And I am thankful it came off at the right time. I will take every opportunity as it comes. I do not want to put pressure on myself. I have played the IPL here before, and know the conditions here. The wicket was on the slower side. I took my time knowing that we had a good batting line-up.”For the 31-year-old van Wyk, who seems destined to end up a journeyman cricketer, this was an even bigger opportunity. He grabbed it with both hands, running back from mid-off and then diving nearly to a full stretch to remove M Vijay. Then came his batting.van Wyk is an interesting batsman with an interesting back lift. The bat reaches his ear as he waits for the ball, and the face is always open, showing the maker’s name to the point fieldsmen. By the time it comes down, though, the bat is straight, and there is no problem in closing its face too. As he demonstrated to Munaf Patel, hitting him over midwicket, through point and over mid-on in the same over. Munaf seemd to be at the wrong end of van Wyk today: when he came back for another spell, he found van Wyk flicking him over long leg and squeezing a yorker between the two point fieldsmen.By the time van Wyk got out for 67, South Africa had scored only 92, showing how he was the only man who adjusted well to the conditions. “Definitely, when Morne was going pretty well for us, we were up with the rate, ahead of it actually,” South African captain Johan Botha said. “But as soon as the rate went high, it was difficult to come back. We can’t expect Nos 8, 9, 10 and 11 to get more than 10 an over in the end.”Two men least likely to make an impact in the limited-overs leg of the tour a week ago have made the most impact in the first game. It will be interesting to see if they can carry it into the ODIs.

The ECB is facing legal action to return around £2.2 million (US$3 million) received from the disgraced financier Allen Stanford, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.Receivers acting for creditors of the collapsed Stanford empire are pursuing a number of sporting bodies which had dealings with Stanford.”There has been a running fear in the ECB that the receiver could come after them, and this could be the knock on the door they have been dreading for two years,” a source familiar with the Stanford deal told the newspaper.The ECB declined to comment on the issue but it is believed it took legal advice on the possibility of this situation occurring some time ago and was advised it was unlikely to have to pay the money back.The Stanford Super Series, which took place in October and November 2008, was a hugely embarrassing episode for the ECB, which was seeking a bargaining chip in the simmering dispute with its contracted players who were seeking a share of the new-found riches in IPL cricket.The original US$100 million deal was for five Stanford Super Series, featuring England and a Stanford Superstars XI, which culminated in a $20 million winner-takes-all final at Stanford’s private ground in Antigua. His subsequent arrest on fraud charges meant that only the first of those tournaments was played, in which England were humiliated by ten wickets.The ECB’s plans to host an annual quadrangular Twenty20 tournament at Lord’s featuring England, a Stanford XI and two international sides, were quietly shelved. Of the prize fund, US$13 million was split between Chris Gayle’s victorious Superstars team – money which could also attract the attention of the receivers – while the remaining US$7 million was split between the ECB and the West Indies Cricket Board.Stanford, who was last month deemed unfit to face trial in Texas on account of his addiction to anti-anxiety drugs, stands accused of fronting a US$7 billion “Ponzi” scheme, charges which he denies. Speaking at the time of his arrest, Rose Romero of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said: “We are alleging a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world.”

Andrew Strauss believes that his new opposite number, Michael Clarke, has the tactical acumen to cope with the challenge of captaining Australia in the fifth Test in Sydney, but warns that he’ll find it hard to lead from the front in the long term unless he regains the batting form that has deserted him since the tour of New Zealand in March.Strauss knows from personal experience how invigorating the captaincy can be for a batsman – his average when leading the side in 31 Tests rises to 46.60, compared to an overall mark of 43.02. But Clarke has inherited the role with his form in the doldrums. He has made 148 runs at 21.14 in the series to date, and has made just one hundred in his last 35 innings in all international cricket – although that unbeaten 111 at Visakhapatnam did come while captaining the one-day side in Ricky Ponting’s absence in India back in October.”It’s a lot tougher,” admitted Strauss. “You have the double whammy of the side not playing well and if you’re not playing well either, there’s almost not enough time of the day to think about why you’re not playing well and pick yourself up. But it’s always temporary. If you’re a good player, personal form is not going to desert you for too long. And you usually come out of the other side.”With Ponting ruled out of the Test with a broken finger, Clarke is set to become Australia’s 43rd Test captain, despite having never previously led a team in first-class cricket. Strauss, however, who cut his teeth as Middlesex’s skipper long before he was handed the England job, said it was not a necessary pre-requisite.”Captaining in a Test is very different to captaining a first-class game,” he said. “Clarke has long been earmarked as a captain, and by all accounts, tactically he is pretty good. As I found though, you have to learn on the job and you have to learn reasonably quickly. People sink or swim. It is like your Test debut. People either stand up and deliver or it becomes difficult. Clarke has delivered plenty of times with the bat so he is in a position to do well.”From Strauss’s point of view, it makes no difference who lines up alongside him for the toss on Monday morning. “It is a big day for Clarke coming in and captaining a Test match but from our point of view we know the formula that has worked for us and it is important to adopt that again, and maybe, make any slight changes that we need to for the Sydney wicket. We won’t worry too much about what is happening in their camp. There is an opportunity for them to play with a bit more freedom, so we have to be on our game.”There are sure to be nerves aplenty in the Australian dressing-room, with two Test debutants lining up for Clarke’s first match in charge. But despite the confidence in the England camp at present, Strauss insisted that they would play their opponents on merit – particularly the left-arm spinner, Michael Beer, who is set to become Australia’s 10th slow bowler in Test cricket since Shane Warne’s retirement on this ground in January 2007.”We will play the situation and if there is an opportunity to be positive I would like our batsmen to take that,” said Strauss. “If he is bowling well and there is turn for him we have to be respectful. Generally it is important that you don’t play the man but play the ball coming down at you. It will be just the same for Beer and any of their seamers.”

It used to be that Zimbabwe carried the tag of ‘underdog’ into their engagements with every Test nation, bar Bangladesh. In the last five years, however, the two teams have moved in opposite directions and those roles have been well and truly reversed.Bangladesh beat Zimbabwe for the first time in Harare in March 2004, but Zimbabwe went on to win that rain-ravaged series 2-1 and it was not until Bangladesh’s first Test victory over the Zimbabweans, at Chittagong in January 2005, that the worm really turned.Now, leading his team to Bangladesh for their fourth bilateral series against them in less than two years, Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura insists he is comfortable to let the hosts carry the burden of being singled out as favourites for whom anything less than a convincing series win will be deemed a failure. “Definitely they [Bangladesh] are playing well at home. We are the underdogs but we just need to play our best cricket,” he said.”Bangladesh played well against a better team recently, so they are expected to win. So we are not under pressure. All we have to do is play good cricket and concentrate on our own team and not focus too much on what Bangladesh is doing -the focus is our team. I just need to carry off from where I left off the last time I was here. I will be positive, the team will be even more positive this time; hopefully we will play good cricket and win games.”Similarly, Zimbabwe’s coach Alan Butcher conceded that a buoyant Bangladesh, having just handed New Zealand a 4-0 thrashing, will be tough to beat at home but a measure of Zimbabwean success is far from unthinkable. “We will approach every game with the intention to win and if we do that well enough indeed we will win the series,” he explained. “I am not going to sit here and promise that we win this series because Bangladesh will be feeling pretty confident as well. As we went to South Africa we did not really feel we would win the series but it is a lot different here in Bangladesh.”The Zimbabweans’ warm-up for this series was the Stanbic Bank 20 Series, a week-long Twenty20 tournament featuring the five domestic franchises – each with several overseas players on their books. Prior to that, in October they travelled to South Africa where, despite losing every game, there were signs of positive development; particularly from the batsmen.”We got some good reviews from our performances in South Africa,” said Butcher. “However we did not win any games and we have come here to play some good cricket and win some games. We’ve prepared well and taken a look at the conditions and it is going to be totally different from those in South Africa and we have prepared for them as well.”Zimbabwe, for several years ostracised from mainstream international cricket, have become very used to playing Bangladesh in the last half-decade. They have met in no less than nine series in that time, with Bangladesh winning all but one of those. Despite their abysmal win record in those encounters, both Zimbabwe’s captain and coach insist that the experience gained over the years will stand the team in good stead – and the current tour will only help preparations for next year’s World Cup.”So far it is pretty comfortable,” Butcher said of his team’s adjustment to the tropical conditions. “It is warm in Zimbabwe at the moment, so heat should not be a problem. A lot of the guys have played here before -the likes of Elton [Chigumbura], Prosper [Utseya] and Ray Price who have been here before. This is their sixth visit and they have plenty of experience playing here. Dew and humidity may be a factor but we are going to deal with any eventuality.””I don’t think the conditions have changed much here as I have been here plenty of times,” added Chigumbura, who has played 37 international matches against Bangladesh. “I just need to use the experience I have gathered and use it properly. We expect that [slow, low pitches] here and the guys are working on it in the hope that it will come right during the games as well. It will be good to play here to prepare ourselves for the World Cup.”Though Zimbabwe were crushed 4-1 the last time they visited Bangladesh – including the humiliation of being skittled for just 44 to surrender the series in the fourth ODI at Chittagong – bowling coach Heath Streak believes they are a much improved unit and are eager to show just how far they have come.”We played a lot between now and then and we had a good series at home against Sri Lanka and India and quite a competitive series against South Africa,” said Streak.” Of course we have Chigumbura and Taibu and Taylor who are all in really good form. We also have some good spinners so they will also plan to see how they play our spinners better. We are going to respect them but we are also here to prove that we are getting better and we deserve to get back into the Test arena.””It will be a factor in how people perceive Zimbabwe cricket,” Butcher responded when asked if a series win would be a boost to Zimbabwe’s return to Test cricket. “Should we win the series after Bangladesh demolished New Zealand, people will have to sit up and take notice and respect Zimbabwe cricket and feel that it is on an upward path again.”

West Indies A won the one-over eliminator
ScorecardWest Indies A pipped Pakistan A by one run in the one-over eliminator, after the opening Twenty20 match of the series had ended in a tie at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua. West Indies A managed only seven in the eliminator but their inexperienced spinner, Ashley Nurse, conceded only six as two wickets fell to end Pakistan A’s chances.During the course of the game, West Indies A had restricted Pakistan A to 130 for 4. The visitors were led by opener Khurram Manzoor, who top-scored with 42 off 45 balls. His partner Umair Khan made 36 off 28 balls and the first wicket-stand added 77 in 10.4 overs. After the openers were dismissed, the rest of the batsman failed to provide a strong finish. David Bernard, Nikita Miller and Jason Holder picked up a wicket apiece for the home side.West Indies A lost early wickets during the chase to Mohammad Rameez and were 26 for 2 in the fourth over. Opener Andre Fletcher scored 34 off 27 balls before he was bowled by Yasir Shah, leaving the innings on 46 for 3. Kirk Edwards, Danza Hyatt and Jonathan Foo made useful middle-order contributions to steer West Indies A towards the target but Foo was dropped twice during his 21 off 16 balls.With West Indies A needing one run off the final delivery Holder was run out amid chaotic scenes. The home team regained their composure, though, and secured a tense win in the eliminator.

Match facts

Sunday, September 26
Start time 1730 (1530 GMT)The Champions League final will be this Chennai outfit’s last competitive game ahead of the IPL player auction in November•AFP

Big Picture

It’s tempting to bill the final as the clash of captains: Davy Jacobs v MS Dhoni. It makes sense too. Jacobs is an interesting character. He’s extremely driven and has always wanted captaincy. He thinks it’s his destiny to lead this Warriors side. They hadn’t won a thing for 18 years until he came along. It’s team. It’s his passion, his life. And he is a fiercely ambitious young man.Jacobs hasn’t played a game for South Africa yet but, when asked what his plans are, he said he would like to be the vice-captain to Johan Botha in the Twenty20 international team. And there was no trace of arrogance. He said it as though it was a given and, in his mind, it is. A couple of days ago South Africa’s Test, ODI and Twenty20 sides were selected for the home series against Zimbabwe and the tour of the UAE. Jacobs wasn’t in them. Rest assured, he won’t stop busting his gut till he gets in. He’s that kind of a man.Tonight, after the successful semi-final, he said: “The team that wants it more will win tomorrow.” This is where this gets complicated.If this was just another final, it would not be far-fetched to say that Jacobs desires victory more than Dhoni does. But it’s not just another final. It’s the last time that this group of players will play together for Chennai and Dhoni has said he wants a perfect farewell. “Emotionally we are quite attached but unfortunately we won’t be able to retain the same team. We want to do well as this is the last tournament. The way we have gelled in the last three years [is great].”Dhoni’s leadership has its share of admirers. He tries to ensure that he appears calm in the middle, he knows his teams’ weaknesses, he definitely knows its strengths and, like most successful captains, he gets his share of luck.It will perhaps come down to the pitch then. Jacobs said the Wanderers track will offer pace and bounce and he expects Makhaya Ntini to fire on the big day. But things even out. Dhoni has Doug Bollinger and Albie Morkel, who returned from injury and produced an excellent spell against Royal Challengers Bangalore. The edge in the seam attack will be with Chennai if Morkel can reprise that semi-final performance. He has often failed to be consistent in the Twenty20 format. Chennai’s spin attack comprises Muttiah Muralitharan and R Ashwin, Warriors have Nicky Boje and Johan Botha. Advantage Chennai?And so we come to the batting. Chennai didn’t have to face the pace of Dale Steyn in the last game and ended up with a massive total. Can Ntini and co strike fear in their camp? But Chennai do bat deep, at least deeper than Warriors. It’s difficult to pick a winner.

Team news

Both teams don’t have any injury problems and are likely to go with unchanged sides.Chennai(probable): 1 M Vijay, 2 Michael Hussey, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 S Badrinath, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 S Anirudha, 7 Albie Morkel, 8 Doug Bollinger, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 L BalajiWarriors (probable): 1 Davy Jacobs (capt), 2 Ashwell Prince, 3 Colin Ingram, 4 Justin Kreusch, 5 Mark Boucher (wk), 6 Craig Thyssen, 7 Johan Botha, 8 Nicky Boje, 9 Rusty Theron, 10 Makhaya Ntini, 11 Lonwabo Tsotsobe.

Watch out for …

Ashwell Prince has been almost anonymous but he can be the guy who turns it on for Warriors in the final. He is the man who walked up his coach last year and said he wanted to open. He starred in the final of both the Pro20 and Pro-40 tournaments. While the attention will be on the explosive Jacobs, it might be Prince who performs the jailbreak against Chennai. His coach Russell Domingo says he has not seen a more determined cricketer than Prince. “He is calm and brings so much stability to this youthful team.”
Albie Morkel can make or break the game tomorrow. He bowled a fast spell in the last game during which he troubled Bangalore with seam movement and bounce. But Morkel’s game can also disintegrate quickly. He is far from consistent and his contest with the Warriors’ openers could decide the game.

Quotes

“Nicky Boje has a couple of ODI tons as an opener. And Botha can bat. So I am not worried that Botha is at No 6. It has worked for us so far.”

A searing opening burst from Abdul Razzaq, and a typically belligerent half-century from Umar Akmal ensured a nine-wicket victory for Lahore Lions against Multan Tigers at the Gaddafi Stadium.Razzaq stunned the Tigers with wickets off the first two balls of the game, and Shabbir Ahmed struck twice from the other end to leave the score reading 15 for 4. Rameez Alam resisted with 42, but no one else in the top seven managed to cross five. From 49 for 7, the final score of 92 was an improvement and came thanks to a 42-run stand between Rizwan Haider and Abdur Rauf for the eighth wicket.Ahmed Shehzad departed early in the chase, but Akmal was in punishing mood, striking 11 fours in his innings to take his side home in the 15th over.Abbottabad Falcons were guided by a composed half-century from Adnan Raees to seal victory against Peshawar Panthers after their bowlers kept the target to a manageable 124 in Lahore.After the Falcons elected to field, Nabeeullah had the Panthers in early trouble with two quick wickets. Khalid Usman and Yasir Shah kept up the pressure, snaring 5 for 38 in eight overs as the Panthers struggled for momentum. Haroon Ahmed’s run-a-ball 33 was the saving grace and gave his side something to bowl at.Mir Azam and Wajid Ali departed early in the chase, giving the Falcons a scare, but Raees calmed the nerves with a well-paced innings. His 58 came off 47 balls, and support from Mohammad Kashif and Ahmed Said took their side past the line in 18.4 overs.Earlier, Islamabad Leopards bucked the trend of chasing sides winning the match, but only just, as they defended 149 by the margin of four runs against Quetta Bears at the Gaddafi Stadium. The Leopards score was based on a solid opening stand between Raheel Majeed and Umair Khan that raised 76 in 10.3 overs. Naeem Anjum hustled 24 off 12 balls in the closing stages to prop up the final tally, while Jalat Khan finished with figures of 4 for 22.Mir Wais fell early in the chase, but Shoaib Khan jnr was in his element, striking 11 fours and a six in his 66 which came off 46 balls. Bismillah Khan offered steady support, but after his exit in the ninth over, the Leopards tightened the screws. Abid Ali crawled to 20 off 31 balls as the pressure mounted, and the game was in the balance when Shoaib departed in the 17th over. With five runs required for a win off the final delivery, Iftikhar Anjum got Jalat to offer a catch to Fayyaz Ahmed, confirming victory for the Leopards.

South African batsman AB de Villiers has displaced India’s captain MS Dhoni as the top ODI batsman according to the latest ICC ratings. de Villiers, who averages 43.56 in 101 ODIs, had a prolific season that took him to 805 points in the ratings, nine clear of Dhoni. Michael Hussey, the Australian batsman, was third on the list with 792 points.de Villiers amassed 667 runs in his last 10 ODIs, which included four centuries and two fifties against top opposition. Three of those centuries came in consecutive games, in Gwalior, Ahmedabad and Antigua. Though de Villiers did not play in August, Dhoni’s patchy form in the Sri Lanka triangular series, where he scored only 140 runs in five outings, led to the swap at the top.”My ultimate aim is always to do well for the team and to help South Africa win trophies but it is nice to be acknowledged in this way,” de Villiers said. “Two years ago I said I wanted to be the best batsman in the world and it is pleasing to see that I am starting to get results.” He is also keen to move up from his No. 11 position in the Test ratings.de Villiers had ankle surgery during the off-season and was to continue his rehabilitation during a conditioning camp with the senior team. “It [the ankle] is coming on nicely and I can’t wait to pick up my cricket bat again.”Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara was at the top of the Test batting table with 874 points, 15 ahead of Virender Sehwag. Dale Steyn and Daniel Vettori maintained their respective positions at the head of the Test and ODI bowling charts, while Jacques Kallis and Shahid Afridi remained the top allrounders in the two formats.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
Century no. 23 for Kumar Sangakkara•AFP

The SSC has been a fortress of sorts for Sri Lanka in the recent past, and they set about continuing their dominant run at the venue with another imposing opening-day performance. The actors who put them in charge this time were the same as in Galle. Kumar Sangakkara and Tharanga Paranavitana served the Indians a painful reminder of the initiative lost on the first day of the series, cashing in on some unthreatening bowling that offered plenty of opportunities to score on a seemingly lifeless track.The bowlers were expected to have a hard time on this pitch and events after MS Dhoni lost the toss reinforced the apprehensions the sides may have had of fielding first. The virtual absence of swing and the lack of movement off the deck, combined with poor lengths from the seamers, helped the Sri Lankan openers Tillakaratne Dilshan and Paranavitana take the initiative in the opening session. And the glimmer of hope that Dilshan’s wicket provided following the introduction of spin was extinguished by a brilliant counter-attack from Sangakkara.As Dhoni had predicted, the pitch offered more bounce than the one in Galle but the spinners created few chances, despite the accompanying turn. It was Sangakkara who initially unsettled the spinners, prompting Dhoni to set defensive fields soon after Dilshan’s dismissal. In the very over that Pragyan Ojha had Dilshan caught at extra cover, Sangakkara slashed one through point for four and audaciously stepped out to loft him over mid-on.Dilshan’s brisk start to the innings had forced Dhoni to place deep points for both seamers, and Sangakkara’s fluent beginning resulted in a long-on and deep midwicket being put in place for the spinners. And while the slow bowlers kept a slip and a short leg, they rarely bowled on a length to draw the batsmen forward.Harbhajan Singh has a huge responsibility to bear, leading an inexperienced bowling attack, but the ease with which he was handled underlined the daunting task facing the visitors. Harbhajan changed angles and varied his flight but the Sri Lankan left-hand batsmen used the away spin to carve him through cover and point and used their feet to effect when the ball was tossed up. Sangakkara launched one over the bowler’s head for a one-bounce four while Paranavitana, the more cautious of the two, charged down and swung him over the midwicket boundary.The seamers, Ishant Sharma and Abhimanyu Mithun, who had struggled in the opening session, were targeted by Sangakkara after lunch. Facing deliveries that were bowled consistently back of a length, Sangakkara pulled and whipped them behind square and delicately guided those pitched even fractionally short through point and past gully. He was positive throughout, ensuring a steady flow of singles and twos, but had a scare when he edged Mithun just wide of gully while in the nineties. He brought up his 23rd Test century by dispatching Virender Sehwag over mid-on, and looked determined to bat India out of the Test.Paranavitana was a little patchy to begin with. He was beaten on a couple of occasions by Mithun in the morning session, but Ishant gave him an opening with a short and wide delivery that was duly smacked through point. Tentative with his foot movement early on, Paranavitana gradually moved forward to deliveries pitched fuller and picked a couple of boundaries, beautifully driven past mid-off. While Sangakkara was constantly on the hunt for runs, Paranavitana remained solid in defence and ceded the floor to his captain, giving him the strike and intermittently finding the boundary with some crisp drives through the off side. Charged with anchoring the innings, he reached his second successive century moments before Sangakkara got his, but played on to a shortish delivery from Ishant after tea.A sense of foreboding for the Indians was evident fairly early in the day, when Dilshan smacked four consecutive boundaries off Ishant Sharma in the fourth over. He dealt with Mithun similarly, cracking three tempting short deliveries to different parts of the ground to race to a half-century. He squandered an opportunity to reach three figures, two other batsmen did not, and with Mahela Jayawardene standing firm in his favourite venue, Sri Lanka have, yet again, capitalised on winning the toss.