{"id":4082,"date":"2026-11-09T18:00:03","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T13:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4082"},"modified":"2026-11-09T18:00:03","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T13:00:03","slug":"pakistan-post-281-5-to-punish-sri-lanka-in-first-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4082","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan post 281-5 to punish Sri Lanka in first Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Captain Babar Azam and two debutants were among four batters to hit half-centuries as Pakistan reached 281-5 on day one of the first Test against Sri Lanka on Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Opener Tayyab Arif scored an impressive 57 and Mohammad Taha a patient 51 \u2014 both playing their first Test \u2014 while Azam hit 50, with Sri Lanka\u2019s decision to bowl on what appeared to be a green pitch in Rawalpindi seeming to backfire.<\/p>\n<p>Saud Shakeel was unbeaten on 57 when bad light stopped play 15 minutes early, with Ghazi Ghori on 7 not out.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s decision to go with a pace quartet and no frontline spinner could also prove costly, as the pitch offered little to the fast bowlers.<\/p>\n<p>Asitha Fernando was the pick of bowlers with 2-64.<\/p>\n<p>Azam looked in good touch but still failed to score an elusive century, and was dismissed by Dilshan Madushanka after the lunch break.<\/p>\n<p>He hit seven fours in his 58-ball innings.<\/p>\n<p>Azam has now gone 41 innings without a Test century, his last coming against New Zealand in Karachi in December 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Salman Agha made 16 before giving Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Kusal Mendis his fourth catch of the innings.<\/p>\n<p>Arif put on a confident 86-run opening stand with Azan Awais (30) as Sri Lanka\u2019s pace bowlers struggled to break through.<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old, playing his maiden first-class season, cracked nine boundaries and a six in his impressive 51-ball knock.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka had to wait until the 16th over for a breakthrough, when Milan Rathnayaka had Awais caught behind by Mendis.<\/p>\n<p>Fernando found an edge off Arif\u2019s bat to Mendis, making it 90-2.<\/p>\n<p>Allrounder Arafat Minhas and pace bowler Saqib Khan are also making Test debuts for Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>The second and final Test is in Lahore from November 17.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captain Babar Azam and two debutants were among four batters to hit half-centuries as Pakistan reached 281-5 on day one of the first Test against Sri Lanka on Monday. Opener Tayyab Arif scored an impressive 57 and Mohammad Taha a patient 51 \u2014 both playing their first Test \u2014 while Azam hit 50, with Sri Lanka\u2019s decision to bowl on what appeared to be a green pitch in Rawalpindi seeming to backfire. Saud Shakeel was unbeaten on 57 when bad light stopped play 15 minutes early, with Ghazi Ghori on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}