Twitter Reactions: A roller-coaster of a day as New Zealand eye a decent target to set

Sri Lanka would rue the fact that they let go off the advantage that they had.

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Kane Williamson
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Kane Williamson. (Photo by Tharaka Basnayaka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It didn’t take New Zealand too long to clear Sri Lanka’s tail up early on Day 3. The hosts continued to bat with an overnight score of 227/7 with Niroshan Dickwella and Suranga Lakmal being the two batsmen. The latter was the first to fall on the day when his team was still 7 runs short of New Zealand’s first innings total. Trent Boult rattled his stumps when he was batting on 40.

Then, Niroshan was sent back to the pavilion by William Somerville after he mustered 61. Sri Lanka, however, managed to get a marginal first innings lead of 18 runs before they were bowled out for 267. Ajaz Patel didn’t pick any wickets on this day and finished with five while Somerville accounted for three scalps.

New Zealand stumble and then revive

New Zealand had a terrible start to their second innings. While they could have clearly gained the advantage by building a good partnership early on, it didn’t really happen. First, it was Jeet Raval who fell to Dhananjaya de Silva after scoring 4 runs. As usual, there were a lot of expectations on Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor. However, it wasn’t to be this time for both these players as they got out to cheap scores.

Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor got out to reckless shots which was quite frustrating. After being down to 25/3, it was Tom Latham and Henry Nicholls who came to the rescue. They built up a nice little partnership before Akila Dananjaya managed to trap the opener for 45 runs. Post Latham’s wicket, Nicholls seemed to have gotten into a shell and was eventually dismissed for 26. With New Zealand losing half their side at 98 with a lead of just 80, Sri Lanka might have felt they were ahead.

But BJ Watling and Tim Southee upset their plans with some good batting. They added 54 runs together before the pacer got out for 23. At the close of play on the day, BJ Watling was unbeaten on 63 and New Zealand’s score was 195/7. They have a lead of 177 and will look to take that beyond 200.

There were several situations in the game when Sri Lanka had an advantage. However, they failed to seize upon that and let New Zealand getaway. While the Kiwi fans were obviously elated, the Sri Lankan fans didn’t seem to be impressed with the efforts at times. Southee was dropped twice which wasn’t really a pleasing sight.

Here is how Twitterati reacted:

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