GALLE – Feck­less West In­dies were star­ing at yet an­oth­er heavy de­feat on Sri Lankan soil af­ter suf­fer­ing an ap­palling sec­ond in­nings col­lapse on the penul­ti­mate day of the open­ing Test in Sri Lan­ka on Wednes­day.

Set an im­prob­a­ble 348 for vic­to­ry in four ses­sions, the Caribbean side slumped to 52 for six be­fore bad light forced play­ers from the field and sig­nalled a pre­ma­ture end to play at the scenic Galle In­ter­na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

Start­ing their run chase af­ter Sri Lan­ka de­clared their sec­ond in­nings on 191 for four on the stroke of tea, West In­dies ap­peared head­ed for one of their low­est to­tals in Tests when they tot­tered em­bar­rass­ing­ly on 18 for six at one stage.

How­ev­er, Nkrumah Bon­ner (18 not out) and wick­et­keep­er Joshua Da Sil­va (15 not out) com­bined in a sev­enth wick­et stand of 34 to frus­trate Sri Lan­ka’s vic­to­ry bid and push the con­test in­to the fi­nal day.

Off-spin­ner Ramesh Mendis once again tor­ment­ed the vis­i­tors with four for 17 while left-arm spin­ner La­sith Em­buldeniya fin­ished with two for 18, to pro­vide sup­port.

With rain al­so fore­cast for Thurs­day, West In­dies will be hop­ing for help from the weath­er in sav­ing the game, es­pe­cial­ly still re­quir­ing 296 runs to win and with on­ly the tail re­main­ing.

“I feel every­one is dis­ap­point­ed [but] it’s the na­ture of the sport,” Bon­ner said fol­low­ing the day’s play.

“Peo­ple will get out in crick­et and that will hap­pen. It’s just up to me and Josh and the rest of bat­ters to try and get the job done.

“It’s a sim­ple plan to­mor­row (Thurs­day) just to bat time and score as many runs as pos­si­ble.”

Re­sum­ing the morn­ing on 224 for nine fol­low­ing a 45-minute rain de­lay, the West In­dies first in­nings last­ed on­ly an­oth­er 19 min­utes be­fore last man Shan­non Gabriel was lbw to Praveen Jayaw­ick­ra­ma for two, the left-arm spin­ner fin­ish­ing with the best fig­ures of four for 40.

Armed with a 156-run lead, Sri Lan­ka then quick­ly went about their busi­ness, cap­tain Dimuth Karunaratne top-scor­ing with 83 to fol­low up his first in­nings 147, and for­mer skip­per An­ge­lo Math­ews blast­ing an un­beat­en 69 off 84 de­liv­er­ies.

They lost Pathum Nis­san­ka cheap­ly for three in the third over with just four runs on the board, glov­ing a catch to Shai Hope at leg slip off off-spin­ner Rah­keem Corn­wall (2-60) while Os­ha­da Fer­nan­do fell for 14, lbw to left-arm spin­ner Jomel War­ri­can (2-42).

But West In­dies’ hopes of lim­it­ing the hosts were dashed as Karunaratne and Math­ews came to­geth­er to dom­i­nate in a 123-run, third wick­et stand, which took Sri Lan­ka to lunch on 84 for two and helped them con­trol the sec­ond ses­sion.

The left-hand­ed Karunaratne faced 104 de­liv­er­ies in 2-¾ hours and count­ed nine fours, while Math­ews clob­bered half-dozen fours and a brace of six­es.

Karunaratne and Dhanan­jaya de Sil­va (1) fell just fol­low­ing the drinks break but Math­ews found an al­ly in Di­nesh Chandi­mal (10 not out) to add a fur­ther 28 off 17 balls for the fifth wick­et and mul­ti­ply the tour­ing side’s woes.

Opt­ing to hand the new ball to Mendis and Em­buldeniya, Sri Lan­ka reaped al­most in­stant suc­cess.

Cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite start­ed the rot when he missed a pull at Mendis in the third over and per­ished lbw with­out scor­ing with three runs on the board and his open­ing part­ner and vice-cap­tain Jer­maine Black­wood fol­lowed for nine, three overs lat­er, reck­less­ly drag­ging Em­buldeniya to Math­ews at mid on.

With three runs added, the right-hand­ed Hope was bam­boo­zled and com­pre­hen­sive­ly bowled for three play­ing back to Mendis at 14 for three and in the very next over, Ros­ton Chase was bowled through the gate by Em­buldeniya for one.

Mendis then struck twice in suc­ces­sive de­liv­er­ies in the next over to leave the in­nings in per­il. First, he earned an easy lbw de­ci­sion against Kyle May­ers (2) af­ter the left-han­der shoul­dered arms to one which spun back to hit the back pad.

And new bats­man Ja­son Hold­er played for turn to a de­liv­ery which held its line, and lost his off-stump, suf­fer­ing the in­dig­ni­ty of his fifth first-ball ‘duck’ in Tests.

How­ev­er Bon­ner, who had en­tered at num­ber three, com­bined with Da Sil­va to calm the storm, the pair cru­cial­ly guid­ing West In­dies past their low­est-ever Test to­tal of 47, against Eng­land in Kingston 17 years ago.

CMC

SCORES:

SRI LAN­KA 286 (Dimuth Karunaratne 147, Dhanan­jaya de Sil­va 61, Pathum Nis­san­ka 56, Di­nesh Chandi­mal 45; Ros­ton Chase 5-83, Jomel War­ri­can 3-87, Shan­non Gabriel 2-69) and 191 for four de­cl. (Dimuth Karunaratne 83, An­ge­lo Math­ews 69 not out; Jomel War­ri­can 2-42, Rah­keem Corn­wall 2-60)

WEST IN­DIES 230 (Kyle May­ers 45, Kraigg Brath­waite 41, Rah­keem Corn­wall 39, Ja­son Hold­er 36, Jer­maine Black­wood 20; Praveen Jayaw­ick­ra­ma 4-40, Ramesh Mendis 3-75) and 52 for six (Ramesh Mendis 4-17, La­sith Em­buldeniya 2-18)