Zimbabwean batsmen surprise confident Sri Lankan's

If the Sri lankan's expected the Zimbabweans to lie down and die on this five week tour, they had better have a rethink. The tourists surprised the Sri Lankans with an impressive batting display at the P.Sara Stadium in Colombo today, finishing the day on 254-4.

Kevin Curran, who has just arrived in Sri Lanka and will be coaching the Zimbabwean side, was very satisfied with the team's performance. Speaking to CricInfo after the match he said, "we lost one wicket early on but the guys just got stuck in. For one guy to get a hundred and another to get a fifty in the first warm-up game it is very pleasing. Its good to see how enthusiastic the players are and how quickly they have adapted."

The coach has every reason to be pleased with his players and especially with Mark Vermeulen, who batted brilliantly today, scoring 152 off 199 deliveries. The manner in which they battled hard in the opening hour when conditions so favoured the bowlers and then the positive intent they displayed thereafter, could well set the tone for the tour. To succeed in Sri Lanka they know that they have to play positively and take the game to the confident Sri lankan's.

Kevin Curran saying afterwards that, "I always played positive when I played and I as a coach I have adopted the same approach. I am not one for boring draws, I like to see the guys play the game in the right spirit and play the game positively at all times with bat and ball."

One suspects that the Sri Lankan's were a little surprised by the performance of the tourists, especially Mark Vermeulen, who took the attack to the bowlers right from the start of his innings. Certainly they would have expected to take more wickets than they did in the first hour, after Zimbabwe had won the toss and bravely decided to bat first on a moist wicket. Alas for the Sri lankan's, their fast bowlers erred far too often in both line and length. Despite extracting prodigious movement they didn't consistently threaten the batsmen.

The only wicket to fall during that crucial first hour was the unlucky Gavin Rennie (6) who was adjudged to have been caught behind in Kaushalya Weeraratne's first over. He had replaced the rather wayward Prabath Nissanka, who was making his Sri lankan comeback after a long lay off due to unjury. Charitha Buddhika was the pick of the seamers in this session, extracting movement off the seam whilst maintaining a consistently good length.

The fall of Gavin Rennie in the 10th over brought the tall Vermeulen to the crease. Immediately he began to change the tempo of the innings with two thumping cover drives early on in his innings. He stands tall at the crease and bats in an uncomplicated manner. Particularly keen to drive the ball, he hit most of his runs in front of the wicket. When spin in the form of Niroshan Banadarathilka was introduced into the attack, Vermeulen, immediately grasped the initiative with a pick-up sweep over deep square.

After a relatively sedate morning session, in which just 71 runs were scored, the batsmen took the attack to the Sri Lankan bowlers, scoring over 120 runs in the second session. The majority of these were from the blade of Vermeulen, who raced to his hundred off just 125 balls. Nevertheless the contribution of the compact left hander, Neil Ferreira (52), should not be forgotten. He worked really hard to establish himself early on, before capturing the positive mood of his partner and hitting 5 fours and one six in a fifty which lasted 252 minutes.

When Sri Lanka finally made the break through it came as a surprise such was the dominance of the batsmen at this stage. Immediately after bringing up the 200 Neil Ferreira was adjudged LBW, the victim of a straighter delivery from the left arm spin of Banadarathilake.

Relieved to have broken through the Sri Lankan's lifted themselves a started a mini fight-back . Dion Ebrahim (2) was LBW to the persevering Weeraratne and the day's hero was finally dismissed as he tried to hit the same bowler over the top. Zimbabwe were now 229-4 and Sri Lanka were back in the game. However some impressive batting by the talented Greg Lamb (23*) at the end of the day ensured that Zimabawe will start tomorrow on top. Indeed with the pitch likely to break-up by the end of the second day, they have an excellent chance of putting pressure on this BCCSL XI, the majority of whom will be playing in the test matches or ODIs.