Cricket: Sri Lanka at a crawl

Hashan Tillakaratne's maiden Test century was one of the few highlights of another tedious day as Sri Lanka crawled to a first-innings total of 402 on the second day of the third and final Test against Zimbabwe in Harare yesterday.

Tillakaratne, the wicketkeeper, then snapped up a catch to dismiss Grant Flower off the final ball of the day to leave Zimbabwe on 10 for 1 in reply.

Tillakaratne, who three times before in Tests had been dismissed in the 90s, took seven and a half hours to compile 116, hitting 14 boundaries from 287 balls.

Tillakaratne eventually fell to a brilliant, one-handed catch by Mark Dekker at forward short leg off the leg-spin of Paul Strang. Heath Streak, the fast bowler, finished with figures of 4 for 97 and Strang, making his Test debut, 3 for 65.

---------------------------------------------------------------- (Sri Lanka won toss: Second day) ---------------------------------------------------------------- SRI LANKA - First innings (Overnight: 248 for 4) H P Tillakaratne c Dekker b Strang. . . . . . .116 A Ranatunga c Dekker b Streak. . . . . . . . . .39 S T Jayasuriya c James b Streak. . . . . . . . .10 R S Kalpage c James b Brain. . . . . . . . . . .14 H P D K Dharmasena c A Flower b Strang. . . . . 21 C Vaas not out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 R Pushpakumara c A Flower b Jarvis. . . . . . . .8 Extras (b7 lb11 nb10 w4). . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 Fall (cont): 5-267 6-280 7-329 8-366 9-380.

Bowling: Brain 34-4-90-2 (8nb 3w); Streak 38- 8-97-4 (1w); Jarvis 37-13-58-1 (1nb); Whittall 28-5-74-0 (1nb); Strang 25-6-65-3.

ZIMBABWE - First Innings G W Flower c Tillakaratne b Pushpakumara. . . . .5 M H Dekker not out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Total (for 1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Fall: 1-10 To bat: A D R Campbell, D L Houghton, * A Flower, W R James, G J Whittal, H H Streak, P A Strang, D H Brain, M P Jarvis.

Bowling (to date): Vaas 6-3-4-0; Pushpakumara 5-2-4-1; Dharmasena 2-0-2-0.

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