Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, Day 4 Review: Sri Lanka on a verge of an easy win

Sri Lanka is now just 3 wickets away from a 2-0 clean sweep, thanks to Rangana Herath’s superb bowling spell of 5/45 that reduced Zimbabwe to 180/7 after setting a humongous 491 runs target. The left arm spinner was all over the Zimbabweans today who have no chance of saving the match.

After gaining an upper hand in the game on day three, Sri Lanka resumed batting on the overnight score of 102/4 and declared on 258/9 and set an improbable target for the hosts. A target as huge as 491 is unachievable under most circumstance. Thus, it was all about saving the game for the Zimbabweans when they came out to bat just before tea.

Playing out remaining 11 overs in the lunch session and the subsequent final session must have been in the minds of the Zimbabwean team. The manner in which they batted in the first innings gave slight hopes. One expected some resistance from them but Herath spun his magic and did not allow any the Zimbabweans create any turnaround.

The Lankan skipper took the matter in his own hand straightway and sent back the top three of the opposition back to the pavilion. Brian Chari, who scored 88 and was the top-scorer in the first innings, could recreate his performance was the first victim to fall. All he could survive was 17 deliveries before an arm ball from the spin bowling ace floored his stumps. It was a massive setback.

The second wicket fell a couple of over later when Herath claimed another scalp with his arm ball after he pinned Hamilton Masakadza on the front pad and dismiss him LBW. The experienced batsman went for a review as the last resort to save his wicket but was given out after the Hawkeye showed that the ball was grazing his stumps. Returning from the break, Zimbabwe lost another wicket quickly when Mawoyo was caught at slips.

But, just when it seems that the match was set to finish inside this session, Craig Ervine and Sean Williams provided some breather for the hosts and compiled a 47 run stand for the fourth wicket and tale the team score past the 100 run mark. Both looked at ease as compared to their top order mates probably benefitted from the fact that Herath chose to pull himself out of the attack. The duo chose to play aggressively and scored runs at almost 5 per over.

But, Sri Lanka gained their lost momentum once again with two back to back strikes. Right arm speedster Kumara snapped Williams in the 29th over to break the frustrating partnership and part-time Dhananjaya de Silva grabbed Malcolm Waller in the following over to set the tone in favour of the visitors. Ervine continued to dig in but kept losing partners.

Herath brought himself back to the attack again in final few overs of the day and snapped two more wickets to complete yet another five-wicket haul and bring his team closer to victory. The veteran also achieved another milestone as he completed 50 Test wickets this calendar year.

His sublime bowling, in fact, made many believe that the game would get over by stumps. But, the hosts managed to get through and stretch the game till the last day. Logically speaking, it will be just a matter of the first couple of hours in tomorrow and Sri Lanka would seal the series by a thumping margin.

Brief Scores:

Sri Lanka 1st Innings: 504 all out (Dhananjaya de Silva 127; Donald Tiripano 3/90)

Zimbabwe, 1st Innings: 272 (Brian Chari 80; Rangana Herath 5/89)

Sri Lanka, 2nd Innings: 258/9d (Dimuth Karunaratne 88; Graeme Cremer 4/91)

Zimbabwe, 2nd Innings: 180/7 (Craig Ervine 65; Rangana Herath 5/45)