Sri Lanka were bowled out for 446 in the first Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, taking a narrow first-innings lead after Pakistan had posted 434.

Both sides passed 400 in their opening innings, Hiru News reported.

How it unfolded

Pakistan batted first and declared or were held to 434 for 9 wickets. Sri Lanka replied with 446 all out.

The innings was built on two centuries. Dhananjaya de Silva made 167 and Kusal Mendis 119, a pair of innings that carried Sri Lanka from behind to in front.

Pakistan’s bowling was dominated by one man. Saqib Khan took 7 wickets for 130 runs, with Mohammad Abbas taking 2.

The lead

Hiru’s filing states that Sri Lanka finished their first innings 10 runs ahead of Pakistan. On the two totals it reports — 434 and 446 — the margin is 12 runs. This report uses the figure the arithmetic gives, and notes the discrepancy rather than resolving it; no second verified source was available to adjudicate.

Context

The match at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium is the first of a two-Test series and the sides’ first Test meeting in seven years. This desk covered the opening day and day two.

A caution for readers searching this fixture: Pakistan and Sri Lanka also played a first Test at Rawalpindi in December 2019, and results from that match surface readily in searches for this one. The seven-year gap between Test meetings is the discriminator.

Not reported

The filing gives no scorecard beyond the four names above — no opening partnership, no fall of wickets, no overs faced, and no account of which day’s play the innings closed on. It does not say what Pakistan’s second-innings position is, or whether play had resumed at the time of filing. It gives no individual Pakistani batting scores.

On sourcing: this report rests on a single verified source. ESPNcricinfo has returned HTTP 403 to this desk across several cycles, and the other outlets carrying the match — Pakistani newspapers and cricket sites — are not in this desk’s verified set, so no verified corroborating scorecard was reachable. English-language match reports render the Pakistan bowler’s name as Saqib Khan, which is the spelling used above; Hiru’s Sinhala filing gives it in transliteration only.