Cricket: Sick Black Caps succumb to Sri Lanka

Daniel Vettori battled illness to once again top-score for NZ with 67. Photo / AP

Scoreboard

GALLE - The New Zealand's cricket team's unhealthy demeanour was clearly evident, but captain Daniel Vettori cited illness as only a contributing factor to their heavy defeat in the first test against Sri Lanka last night.

Vettori preferred to focus on the headache-inducing exploits of man of the match Tillakaratne Dilshan's explosive batting when justifying New Zealand's 202-run loss at Galle International Stadium on the final afternoon.

While a energy-sapping virus scythed though the team, it was first-time test opener Dilshan's punishment that placed Vettori's team in an untenable position as early as Tuesday's opening morning.

Dilshan's enhanced his whirlwind 92 in Sri Lanka's impregnable first innings with a similarly rapid unbeaten 123 yesterday to give Vettori's counterpart Kumar Sangakkara the luxury of declaring from a no-lose situation.

Set 413 for victory, New Zealand fizzled out on 210, leaving a drawn rubber their best outcome when the final test is staged in Colombo from Wednesday.

As Vettori mulled over a thoroughly outplayed New Zealand's performance, his Indian Premier League teammate at the Delhi Daredevils loomed large.

"When you look at how well Dilshan played and how poorly we bowled to him .... it was probably the defining moment of the game.

"There were a couple of opportunities there to put pressure on them but everyone we did he took it away from us. He played exceptionally well, he played very aggressive innings and when you've got a player like that it makes it very tough to captain."

Dilshan smeared 24 boundaries and two sixes amid his match aggregate of 215. New Zealand's batting unit were no match, Vettori's dogged double of 42 and 67 the tourists' biggest contribution.

New Zealand's faint chances of survival to stumps were snuffed out when three wickets toppled for eight runs inside the first hour.

"I really hoped we'd take it down to the wire. I hoped that we could bat for long periods of time but in some ways a few illnesses counted against us and the application wasn't quite there," Vettori explained.

None of the top order got past 21, as left armer Thilan Thushara continued to cause problems.

Muttiah Muralitharan might have taken seven for 161 over the match but it was Thushara's career-best analysis of six for 118 that alarmed Vettori.

"One of the most disappointing things was to lose as many wickets to the seamers as we did.

"Obviously Murali's a difficult customer to come up against but the way Thushara bowled was probably where we let ourselves down."

Meanwhile, victorious skipper Sangakkara also paid tribute to Dilshan's deeds especially after Sri Lanka were 16 for two shortly after New Zealand won the toss and bowled.

"We could have been in trouble if we hung around to dig our way out of it.

"He blazed away and suddenly bowlers were going for 6-8 runs an over. Twenty minutes after we were two down we had 80 runs.

"His batting got us out of trouble quickly, in the second innings he gave us enough time to declare."

- NZPA