Mitchell’s century gives New Zealand first innings lead over Sri Lanka

Daryl Mitchell struck a brilliant century and Matt Henry scored 72 off 75 balls as New Zealand took a first innings lead against Sri Lanka on the third day of the first cricket Test here on Saturday. Mitchell scored 102 while Henry played an aggressive innings. Apart from these, Neil Wagner scored 27 runs from 24 balls, which helped New Zealand to take an 18-run lead by scoring 373 runs in their first innings.

Sri Lanka, who scored 355 runs in the first innings, have scored 83 runs for three wickets in their second innings till the end of the third day’s play and now they have got a lead of 65 runs. Angelo Mathews was playing on 20 when the stumps were uprooted. New Zealand started playing ahead of 162 runs for five wickets in the morning. He was then 193 runs behind Sri Lanka but Mitchell was well supported by the lower order batsmen.

Michael Bracewell and captain Tim Southee made useful contributions of 25-25 runs. Mitchell completed his fifth century off 187 balls and his first against Sri Lanka. On the other hand, Henry batted in a stormy manner and completed his fifth half-century. He hit 10 fours and three sixes in his innings. These include four fours and a six in one over by Kasun Rajita. Sri Lanka lost the wickets of Oshada Fernando (28), Dimuth Karunaratne (17) and Kusal Mendis (14) in their second innings. Blair Tickner took all three wickets.