Wickets and lbws galore

Stats highlights from a bowler-dominated day in Galle

27-Mar-2012

Rangana Herath took 6 for 74, Sri Lanka v England, 1st Test, Galle, 2nd day, March 27, 2012

Seventeen wickets fell for 305 runs on the second day in Galle, which makes this one of the most bowler-dominated days of Test cricket in Sri Lanka. Only twice have more wickets fallen in a day of Test cricket here. The highest was also in a Test involving England, at the SSC in Colombo in 2001 - on the third day of that Test, 22 wickets fell for 229 as England scraped to a four-wicket win. On the second day of the Sri Lanka-Pakistan Test in Kandy in 2006, 20 wickets fell for 255 as Pakistan were bowled out for 170 and then reduced Sri Lanka to 73 for 8 in their second innings. Pakistan ended up winning that Test comfortably, by eight wickets.

Rangana Herath took 6 for 74, his eighth five-wicket haul in Tests, and his best bowling figures in the first two innings of a Test match. His previous best in the opposition's first innings had been 5 for 121 against India in Kanpur in 2009. When bowling in the first innings, Herath averages 39.47; in the second innings, his average improves to 26.03. Six of his eight five-fors have been in the second innings.

This is also Herath's sixth five-for in home Tests - he has taken 74 wickets in 19 home Tests at 27.98. In Tests played overseas or at neutral venues, he averages 40.82, with 52 wickets in 17 Tests. His 6 for 74 is the fifth-best figures in Galle.

Herath's haul is the seventh five-for by a left-arm spinner against England in the last four years. Before that, though, there had been a 20-year period when no left-arm spinner had a five-for against them.

Six England batsmen fell lbw, which equals the highest for them in an innings. It's the fourth time this has happened, but the first since 1978, when Abdul Qadir flummoxed them in Karachi. Only twice have there been more than six lbws in a Test innings.

Ian Bell's 52 is his first half-century in 14 Test innings in Asia against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India. His last such score was 54 against Sri Lanka at the SSC in December 2007.

The highest fourth-innings total in Galle is 253, by Sri Lanka against Australia last year, in a Test they lost by 125 runs. The average runs per wicket in the fourth innings here is only 20.41.

Rangana Herath England Sri Lanka Sri Lanka vs England England tour of Sri Lanka

S Rajesh is stats editor of ESPNcricinfo. Follow him on Twitter