Dhananjaya and Rathnayake’s Grit Shines in 1st Test Against England, Praised by Vaughan

On the opening day of the first Test match at Manchester, Sri Lanka’s Dhananjaya de Silva and Milan Rathnayake saved the team’s blushes. Former England captain Michael Vaughan has praised them for it. On Wednesday, August 21, Sri Lanka was in serious difficulty after losing five wickets in the game’s early session. But the No. 9 batsman and the skipper of Sri Lanka combined to push the visitors to 236 runs in the opening half.

Speaking on the BBC, Vaughan expressed his belief that England will bat after lunch in a manner similar to how Sri Lanka’s wickets fell on Day 1. The former captain praised de Silva and Rathnayake for their perseverance in pulling Sri Lanka out of a difficult situation.

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“This has been an amusing day. Given that Sri Lanka was 6-3, I had assumed that England would be batting after lunch. However, they shown spirit, just like every Sri Lankan team that has ever existed, Vaughan stated on the BBC.

An Admirable Comeback by Sri Lanka

Being the only batter to appear at ease that day, the Sri Lankan skipper himself spearheaded the early pushback. De Silva scored an important 63 runs alongside Rathnayake in addition to smashing 74 off 83 balls. From then on, the rookie medium pacer pushed matters into his own hands, adding 50 more runs with Vishwa Fernando.

“In spite of Mark Wood’s lightning-fast bowling, skipper Dhananjaya de Silva made batting appear rather simple. Vaughan praised the batting duo, saying, “And Rathnayake was just brilliant, what a left-hander he is to come in at number nine.”

Although Sri Lanka was able to get more than 200 people on board, Vaughan thought it was still insufficient. But according to the former batter, a lot would rely on the weather throughout the proceedings.

“I still feel like it’s significantly under par but you just never know because there is rain about and that can often change things quite dramatically,” Vaughan said.

England was 22 for the loss of zero wickets at the close of the first day, behind their opponents by 214 runs.