England’s 34-year-old fast bowler Mark Wood once again showed why he is considered one of the most dangerous fast bowlers in the world. He forced Sri Lankan batsman Dinesh Chandimal, 34, to retire injured after dealing him a brutal blow on the thumb.
The first Test of the three-match series between the England National Cricket Team and the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team is currently underway at Old Trafford in Manchester.
Dinesh Chandimal has not looked great in the match but he is a crucial part of Sri Lanka’s batting line-up. In the first innings, he managed to score just 17 runs off 40 balls with 2 fours before being dismissed by Shoaib Bashir in the 23rd over of the innings.
On the third day of the match, Dinesh Chandimal had performed well in the second innings but Mark Wood’s devastating bowling cut short his stay in the middle.
The incident occurred on the second ball of the 18th over when Mark Wood bowled a short ball at 143 km/h to the Sri Lankan batsman and the latter failed to make any connection with the ball, resulting in him being hit on the thumb.
Dinesh Chandimal appeared to be in pain after being hit and called the physiotherapist. The physiotherapist quickly arrived to check on the batsman and applied the magic spray but as Dinesh Chandimal’s thumb started to swell, the physiotherapist had to take him off the field. Dinesh Chandimal retired injured and was later taken to the hospital for an X-ray.
Watch: Mark Wood injures Dinesh with brutal throw
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Dinesh Chandimal returned to the dugout in the second innings after scoring 10 runs in 12 balls. His performance in the first Test against England with the bat was enough to help him jump to seventh place in the list of the most runs for the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team in Test cricket. Dinesh Chandimal overtook Marvan Atapattu, who scored 5502 runs, to jump to the number 7 spot.
Meanwhile, England scored 358 runs in reply to Sri Lanka’s first innings score of 236 runs. The Three Lions also bowled well on the third day of the Test and picked up wickets quickly.
Speaking ahead of the third day of play, England batting sensation Harry Brook said they were happy with their performances in the first two days.
“Yeah, we’re definitely very happy with the way the game has gone so far. Obviously, they got up to bat yesterday and the day before, sorry, and we managed to get them out on the first day, so we’re very happy with that.”
Talking about the batting challenge, Harry Brook said that the outside pitch was slow and it was difficult to hit boundaries. He said:
“Obviously the outfield is very slow. Trying to time the ball when it’s not going for four is a bit annoying, but the delivery also stays quite low at times. They had quite a soft ball so it wasn’t easy to find boundaries, but I was just trying to keep up with the ones and twos.”