WATCH: Dinesh Chandimal’s unlucky dismissal as ball keeps too low on Day 1 at Old Trafford

Shoaib Bashir. (Photo Source: England Cricket)

Sri Lanka got off to a horror start as three wickets fell in the sixth and seventh overs to leave them reeling at 6/3 with the islanders in all sorts of trouble against an English bowling attack who were in cruise control on Day 1 of the first Test between England and the visitors.

It was wicketkeeper-batter, Dinesh Chandimal, and skipper, Dhananjaya de Silva, who led the charge to rectify the chaos to bring the Lankan batting order to a respectable situation by successfully negating the swinging ball.

It was Shoaib Bashir’s second over and the third to last from Lunch which saw calamity strike, as Chandimal got trapped plumb in front of the stumps. However, the kind of delivery he faced wasn’t something routine or foreseeable, for not only Chandimal, but also for the fielding team as well as onlookers.

Bashir strikes in only his second over 😲💥 pic.twitter.com/evWunci70P

— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) August 21, 2024

With Chandimal already copping a delivery that kept low in the previous over from Bashir, this one was strikingly unforgiving. A back-of-a-length delivery, pitching outside off stump, turning in. Nonetheless, it was the path the ball followed post bouncing off the strip which made all the difference. The ball barely got off the ground, striking Chandimal low on the front pad.

58-year-old Paul Reiffel had no hesitation in lifting his finger as soon as the ball struck Chandimal, as the batter took the review after much consultation with his partner; more out of perplexity than anything else.

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At the time of publishing, Sri Lanka were 158/7 with de Silva being the lone fighter. Batting on a run-a-ball score of 70*, it was debutant Milan Rathnayake accompanying him in the middle.

It remains to be seen how many additional runs can Sri Lanka string together, with each run being no less than a bonus thereon.