Stumps New Zealand 155 for 2 (Conway 78, Williamson 26*, Nicholls 8*, de Silva 1-18) vs Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s seamers, whose eyes might have lit up at the opportunity to bowl first on a supremely green top after Dimuth Karunaratne won the toss, unfortunately had to cope with some of the windiest conditions ever seen at Basin Reserve.
“Today was certainly the windiest I’ve played at the Basin. Certainly a lot of challenge for the bowlers, and we wanted to make the most of that and put pressure on them,” Conway said after the end of play. Put pressure New Zealand certainly did.
In a stand worth 87, it was Kumara that took the brunt of Conway’s aggression, with eight of his 13 boundaries coming against the strapping quick. Anything too short or wide was pulled and cut with ease, while anything overpitched was driven just as efficiently.
The first wicket came only once Latham looked to break free, pulling one straight down deep square-leg’s throat off Rajitha.
De Silva’s flatter trajectory from around the wicket slowed down Conway’s scoring, the left-hander scoring just three runs off the 16 deliveries he faced from de Silva. Eventually that pressure told, with Conway charging de Silva and only managing to chip a low return catch.
Williamson and Nicholls played through the rest of the session on pure merit until bad light meant play was stopped 45 minutes prior to the scheduled close.