Back then, we witnessed many iconic cricket moments, some of which were met with both pain and glory. Without a doubt, the match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka on Day 5 at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch is one of them. It was indeed a close call between the two teams. There were many spine chilling moments in both the locker rooms as they everyone waited to see who would win the game
Blackcaps were not in a commanding position as they had a scoreboard of 28/1 chasing 285 on the final day of the test. When the team was in an unstable position, the legendary batsman Kane Williamson had showcased his great knock earlier and has once again proved his ability for New Zealand.
On one hand, – Lankans sweat a lot to make things favorable for their side. However, they had to surrender against the host middle-order batsmen, Daryl Mitchell and Kane Williamson. Since the match was extremely important for the New Zealanders, Mitchell was playing at a fast pace and contributed 81 with 3 fours and 4 sixes in the hunt, whereas Kane kept his cool till the final moments of the game and remains unbeaten on 121.
The Progression of Innings
The story began with host sending the lankan batter to the pitch and added up a score of 355 in their first innings with every batsmen contributed decently. Special knock came from the willow of Kushal Mendis with a confident figure of 87 just from 83 balls and was well supported by the skipper Dimuth Karunaratne with his 50.
In the meantime, the opposition pacers Tim Southee and Matt Henry showcased their brilliance and caused trouble for the visitors with fantastic figures of 5/64 and 4/80, correspondingly.
When kiwis countered in the second innings and secured a lead of 18 runs. The effort of Daryl Mitchell kept the journey going after a sudden collapse and even Matt Henry was very proactive in the race and ticked the scoreboard to 373 in the face of Asitha Fernando's 4/85 attack.
Back to the second innings: the Srilankan openers failed to put up a huge partnership and fell to Blair Tickney, who claimed 4 wickets. However, it was Angelo Mathews who became a hero for the struggling side and helped them reach 300 against NZ and giving them a target of 285 in the 4th day of the test. The second innings didn’t show a great touch for the Kiwis, as they lost Devon Conway cheaply for 5 and just managed to score 28/1.
The Game Changing Day
The complete credit goes to Kane Williamson who spent the whole day in the crease having a belief that his team will get through and the other Kiwi batsman Daryl Mitchell who showed a remarkable touch to accelerate the scoreboard and did it.
Except for these players, others didn’t show their skillful touch and fell to lions. Asitha Fernando, the right-arm medium pacer for Sri Lanka, bagged three wickets. He gave a ray of hope for his side after he took the wicket of Daryl Mitchell, who was looking extremely dangerous if left on the crease.
From that point on, things were not going well for the NZ side, despite the fact that Kane remains unbeaten at the non-strikers end. Subsequently, the wickets even went against the Kiwis, but he stood still and showcased his epitome of patience, and paved the way to victory.
To sum up, in the case of test matches, the world has beheld some nail-biting moments on plenty of occasions, and this match between NZ and SL is also one of those moments. One more test match remains between the Lions and the Blackcaps.
