Sri Lanka won the toss yet again and opted to bat in the second Test against New Zealand in Galle on Thursday, September 26. New Zealand failed to chase the score down in the fourth innings and will be hoping for a different outcome this time around. New Zealand were in the field on Day 1 of the second Test and the players were sporting black armbands. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) revealed that it was done in the memory of Ian Taylor, a former New Zealand men's team manager and NZC director.
"The Test team is wearing black arm-bands on day 1 of the 2nd Test in Galle to honour the passing of former BLACKCAPS manager, NZC director & Cricket Wellington chair Ian Taylor," a Black Caps statement on X (previously Twitter) read.
New Zealand went unchanged while Sri Lanka made a couple of tweaks to their combination with Milan Rathnayke coming back to the side, replacing Lahiru Kumar. While 27-year-old spinner Nishan Peiris was handed his cap as he made his debut.
After the win in the series opener, Sri Lanka leapfrogged New Zealand to the third place on the World Test Championship (WTC) points table and will be keen to continue its resurgent run, which began at the Oval against England. New Zealand, on the other hand, have now lost three Test matches in a row (two against Australia in Feb-March) and will hope to get back to winning ways before an important series against India next month.
Playing XIs
Sri Lanka: Pathum Nissanka, Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Kamindu Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva(c), Kusal Mendis(w), Milan Rathnayake, Prabath Jayasuriya, Nishan Peiris, Asitha Fernando
New Zealand: Tom Latham, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell(w), Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee(c), Ajaz Patel, William ORourke
