New Zealand went against the grain, choosing to field first to let their fast bowlers exploit the overcast conditions, but it was when they took the pace off that they pulled Sri Lanka back after a frenetic start. Tillakaratne Dilshan, responsible for that fiery opening, missed a fifty for the second time in a row as Scott Styris and Jacob Oram followed in that noble dibbly-dobbly tradition, bowling accurate offcutters, giving Sri Lanka zero pace and room. The moisture in the pitch did help them to get some movement, which meant the batsmen did not take any risks against them.
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| Scott Styris' dismissal of Tillkaratne Dilshan allowed New Zealand to tighten the screws |
Sri Lanka might have gone from 65 for 1 in 11 overs to just 105 for 2 in 25, but they perhaps held the upper hand, having kept wickets in hand and setting themselves up for a score in excess of 230, usually a winning total under the Dambulla lights. Kumar Sangakkara, who began with two lovely boundaries, had to curb his strokeplay, but didn't look in much trouble.
The prevalent state of affairs was completely different from how the game started. There was some movement available for both Daryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills, but Dilshan hit them both hard, on both sides of the wicket. Mills was handed an especially raw treatment, going for five fours in five balls, two of them pulls and three forced away through the off side. The last of those hits took Dilshan to 36 off 20, but that was his last boundary. Both bowlers started bowling tighter lines, and Tuffey got Upul Tharanga with a bouncer in the 10th over.
Sangakkara then began well before Styris and Oram tightened their grips around the scoring. Dilshan, especially, didn't get anything to hit. He managed eight runs off his last 31 balls, and was bowled off a Styris offcutter that stayed slightly low. The edginess was obvious, with a tendency to leave stumps exposed when looking for room. Sangakkara, though, looked less perturbed by the 12-over choke hold of the slow-medium duo, which yielded only two boundaries and 34 runs. That he was unbeaten, along with Mahela Jayawardene, meant Sri Lanka had the wickets in hand to go for a late assault.
