Three late Sri Lanka wickets saw New Zealand claim the advantage on a rain-shortened first day of the second Test in Hamilton.
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New Zealand won the first match of the two-Test series by 122 runs.
In partnership with the wily 37-year-old Rangana Herath, playing his 67th Test, they took New Zealand apart when it seemed openers Tom Latham and Martin Guptill were settling in.
It was the second time in the match that a delivery from a New Zealand bowler struck the stumps without removing the bails – Doug Bracewell had the same experience on the first day.
At stumps the tourists have New Zealand teetering on 232 for nine – the Black Caps are 64 runs behind the Sri Lankans’ first innings total of 292.
With three wickets after tea, New Zealand enjoyed their most productive session after winning the toss and making Sri Lanka bat on a green pitch expected to be a bowler’s paradise.
“We have to come out tomorrow with Boulty [Trent Boult] and Dougy [Doug Bracewell], hopefully get a few more runs together and then bowl very well to restrict Sri Lanka in the next innings”. Not since 2004 had the New Zealand top four fallen in the space of less than ten runs.
Sri Lanka’s plan to survive a minimum of 98 overs or become only the fifth team in Test history to achieve a target in excess of 400 unravelled in the first session of the final day with the dismissals of Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal when the score was 165 shortly after drinks.
Next to go was Ross Taylor, who copped a sharp, lifting delivery from Chameera and was caught behind for a duck.
Despite having a four-pronged pace attack at their disposal, New Zealand failed to create any sustained pressure and were fortunate they took wickets in bunches.
At one stage, Mathews had a forward short leg, a square leg and deep forward square standing virtually in a straight line from the wicket to the boundary waiting for a lofted shot from Neil Wagner.
“The positive is that we did manage to group them nicely and get them seven down”.
Boult repaired his figures with a double-strike in an over, his movement away from Siriwardene resulting in an edge to slip, where Taylor juggled but caught it. Three balls later, Kithuruwan Vithanage closed the face too early and the leading edge was taken low by McCullum diving forward at mid-off.
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From there, the wickets fell less regularly with Santner (38) next to go to make it 168-6, after a review showed he had been caught behind off a Nuwan Pradeep (1-34) ball, before BJ Watling fell victim to Lakmal (1-48). Bowling: Boult 20-2-51-2, Southee 21-5-63-3, Bracewell 22.1-4-81-2, Wagner 9-1-51-1, Santner 7-0-34-0, Williamson 1-0-1-0.
