The Jayawardenes 6th wicket show reached superhuman proportions today as Sri Lanka batted a session and half before declaring their innings closed with a healthy lead of 334 in the first cricket test against India at Motera, Ahmedabad. India on their part came out swinging wiping out 190 runs from that deficit thanks to the usual cavalier play of Virender Sehwag ably supported by an unbeaten Gautam Gambhir. The hosts however did suffer some late disappointment as they lost an in-form Rahul Dravid to a rather dubiou

A sixth double hundred from Mahela Jayawardene and an unbroken 6th wicket partnership of 216 with his unrelated namesake Prasanna Jayawardene helped Sri Lanka erase a 151 run deficit at the start of the day's play and convert it into a 165 run lead as the visitors took complete control of the first test match against India at Motera, Ahmedabad.

With four wickets each falling in the opening session of day 1 and day 2, India would have taken the field with high hopes of making major inroads into the Sri Lankan middle order, and perhaps having a bat again midway through the day. They however did not have a bright new cherry available to them for the first 10 overs of the day, and that proved crucial as the

A scintillating century from Tillakaratne Dilshan and three useful partnerships of note has set up the first cricket test between India and Sri Lanka perfectly, with the visitors well on their way to attacking India's first innings score of 426. Sri Lanka coasted through to 275 for the loss of just 3 wickets as the pitch at Motera, Ahmedabad continues to remain very batsman friendly, leaving India with the prospect of perhaps facing another full day in the field and potentially looking at over a hundred run first innings deficit.

Sri Lanka had an ideal first session of play picking up the Indian tail rather cheaply and making some quick runs more importantly for the loss of no wickets as the teams went in

A mammoth unbeaten ton from veteran superstar Rahul Dravid coupled with two handy knocks from Yuvraj Singh (68) and a second centurion in skipper MS Dhoni (110) helped India recover from a disastrous position at 32 for 4 to post a massive 385 for 6 at the end of the first day's play of the first cricket test against Sri Lanka at the Sardar Patel Stadium at Motera, Ahmedabad.

India won the toss in the morning and opted to bat first on a wicket that 18 months ago saw them crumble to 76 all out in the first innings against South Africa. India named an expected 11, opting to play their 6 top order batsmen with skipper Dhoni coming in at seven, and Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra the four

In an awe inspiring display of power hitting, South African openers Graeme Smith and Loots Bosman helped South Africa put on the second highest T20 international total to defeat England by 84 runs. South Africa made the most of a true pitch and some wayward English bowling to put on 241/6 in their twenty overs. England in reply could only manage 157/8.

The Proteas had pretty much sealed the match by the 13th over when Smith and Bosman had already posted 170, the highest partnership in T20 cricket. The openers were ruthless in their strokeplay as ball after ball was sent crashing into the stands. England's stand in captain Alistair Cook was rendered helpless as every bowling change he tried ins

In the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen, ICC Test Player of the Year 2009 Gautam Gambhir and Kumara Sangakkara resume their fight for the number-one batting slot with the India opener leading the Sri Lanka captain by just nine points going into a three test home series against the Lankans.

Gambhir has a modest record against Sri Lanka by his high standards as he has scored only 364 runs at an average of little over 33 in six Tests with three half-centuries. However, he has been in good form this year as in the three Tests to date, he has scored 445 runs from six innings at an average of 89.

In contrast, Sangakkara has a decent record against India as he has scored 549 runs at an average