GALLE: New Zealand struggled on day four as overnight batsmen Glenn Phillips and Tom Blundell completed half-centuries before Mitchell Santner hit 67, batting partly in the company of the tail. But that struggle only served to dampen their abysmal 88 in the first innings rather than providing any serious hope of avoiding even an innings defeat. Finally, after playing 40.4 overs on the fourth day, they lost their last wicket – Santner – still 154 runs behind Sri Lanka. The home team only fired once. It was Sri Lanka’s third Test win in a row. With four matches to go in the World Test Championship cycle, they are now in the hunt for one of the bottom two spots, although they must hope for more results to stand a better chance. Sri Lanka will also be buoyed by debutant offspinner Nishan Peiris’ six-wicket haul, albeit a costly one, as the New Zealand batsmen went hard on him. He finished the match with figures of 9 for 203, taking 6 for 170 in the second match. On the fourth day, Peiris dismissed three half-centuries each. Blundell was out on the morning of the third day when he missed the backswing (attempted the second in a row, hitting the first for four) and was hit in front of the stumps. Later, Phillips tried to fire Peiris over a straight boundary but Dimuth Karunaratne found long on. After lunch, Peiris stumped Santner when the batter allowed him to slide off the back of the wicket – the last New Zealand wicket to fall. Meanwhile, Prabath Jayasuriya pounced on both Tim Southee and Ajaz Patel, with the latter pouncing on Ajaz in brutal fashion. He finished himself with 9 for 181 from the game. However, Phillips and Santner were New Zealand’s best on the day with four wickets. Phillips’ main strategy was to get on the back foot as often as possible and play off the surface. This often worked – allowing him to pounce on even slightly short deliveries while forcing bowlers to close in on him, opening up scoring opportunities. He completed his 50 off 66 balls and went on to put on a seventh-wicket 64 with Santner to follow up the 95-run stand he shared with Blundell. Santner, meanwhile, was not as active as Phillips but found the offside productive. At times he danced around the track and tried to hit Peiris in particular from the ground. He hit two sixes and a four in the process and completed his half-century soon after lunch, in the 97th ball he faced. He was out off the third delivery Sri Lanka bowled with their second new ball.
