{"id":23533,"date":"2021-01-17T12:59:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T13:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=23533"},"modified":"2021-01-17T14:08:07","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T14:08:07","slug":"leach-takes-five-wickets-as-nervous-england-near-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=23533","title":{"rendered":"Leach takes five wickets as nervous England near victory"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Galle:\u00a0Left-arm spinner Jack Leach took five wickets as England edged towards victory over Sri Lanka in the first Test in Galle, but they made a nervous start to their pursuit of a modest target of 74 and closed day four on 38 for three on Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jonny Bairstow (11 not out) and debutant Dan Lawrence (7 not out) will lead the victory charge on the final day but must master a wicket offering prodigious turn that will leave Sri Lanka believing they are still in with a sniff of an upset.<\/p>\n

South Africa were skittled for 73 in their fourth innings in Galle in 2018 as the home side took 28.5 overs to take 10 wickets, a blueprint for their potential success in this match.<\/p>\n

England lost opener Dom Sibley (2) in the first over of their chase when he left a delivery from Lasith Embuldeniya (2-13) that clipped his off stump and Zak Crawley (8) soon followed, caught at slip by Kusal Mendis off the same bowler.<\/p>\n

There was disaster for the visitors when captain Joe Root (1), who scored a superb 228 in the first innings, was run out by a direct his from wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella to leave England teetering at 14 for three.<\/p>\n

It was a needless attempt at a single that showed the nerves of the visitors and Root\u2019s fifth run out in Tests since the start of 2018.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 359 in their second innings as opener Lahiru Thirimanne scored his second test century in 37 matches before being dismissed for 111.<\/p>\n

He was undone by the new ball when a delivery from Sam Curran (2-37) nipped back and was edged through to wicketkeeper Jos Buttler.<\/p>\n

Off-spinner Dom Bess (3-100) chipped away at the Sri Lanka middle-order, picking up the wickets of nightwatchman Embuldeniya (0), captain Dinesh Chandimal (20) and Dickwella (29) as he finished with eight wickets in the match.<\/p>\n

All-rounder Angelo Mathews (71) batted well with the tail to frustrate the visitors and allow them to set some sort of target, his 219-ball vigil finally ended by Leach (5-122) when he edged to Root at slip.<\/p>\n

Leach was getting considerable turn on the crumbling surface and looked threatening with virtually every ball.<\/p>\n

He provided a first stumping for Buttler in test\u00a0cricket\u00a0when he removed Dilruwan Perera (24).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Galle:\u00a0Left-arm spinner Jack Leach took five wickets as England edged towards victory over Sri Lanka in the first Test in Galle, but they made a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23533"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23535,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23533\/revisions\/23535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}