Suranga Lakmal claimed the 1st wicket in Pallekele..

Pallekele Stadium

The 3rd test between Sri Lanka and West Indies was started at the Pallekele Muttah Muralidharan International Stadium today though the ground is still under constructions. This Match is the 1st test match in the pallekele new Stadium. Pallekele is the 104th test ground in the world. It became the 8th test ground in Sri Lanka. Galle International Stadium was the 7th one. Pallekele ground is a ground that the ICC world cup will be held in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh 2011.

This match is very important for the Sri Lankan team beacause Sri Lanka will loss their 3rd place of the world test ranking and will drop to the 5th position. So, this is a must win game for Sri Lanka. Though it is influences to the team, Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara became the first palce of the test batsman rankings. In this rankings, former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene took the 5th place and Thilan Samaraweera took the 10th place.

The match was started with some late of one and half hour due to heavy rain to Pallekele yesterday. The toss was won by the Sri Lankan Captain Kumar Sangakkara and elected to field first. Pitch report said that the first 2 days it's very friendly to the fast bowlers and later it will spin much. For the Sri Lanka side, Dilhara Fernando was taken to the side instead of Nuwan Kulasekara. West Indies had made 2 changes. Devon Smith and Nelon Pascal were in instead of Shane Shillingford and Adrian Barath.

At the very first ball of the inning (match/ground) Sri Lankan Opening fast bowler Suranga Lakmal took the West Indies openner Chris Gayle's wicket. This was the thrid time that took the wicket in the first ball in the very first match in a new ground. After falling the wicket of Gayle, Darren Bravo(56) and Devon Smith(55) put the partnership of 115(197). Ajantha Mendis broke that partnership by taking the wicket of Smith. At the end of the day West Indies were 134 for 2. Darren Bravo 63*(111) and Shiv Chandrapaul 11*(30) were at the middle when stumps. For the bowling Suranga Lakmal with 20 for 1, Ajantha Mendis with 31 for 1 made success.

If there is no disturbances from the rain and the bad light conditions, we can see the decision of this match at Pallekele.