Sri Lanka's batsmen entertain at Cardiff

Sri Lanka's cricketers put a controversial team selection behind them to smash the Glamorgan bowling to the tune of 337 for seven on the opening day of their four-day tour at Sophia Gardens here today.

Two batsmen who have been short of runs on the tour, Kumar Sangakkara and Hashan Tillakaratne, made the most of bright and sunny conditions when Glamorgan asked them to bat first on what turned out to be a good flat track.

The pair put on 175 for the third wicket off 307 balls. Tillakaratne's share in the stand was only 60, as Sangakkara found his touch to reveal his full repertoire of strokes. His flashing blade struck 18 fours and two sixes in 194 minutes of majestic batting. He was out in the penultimate over before tea after facing 152 balls, edging a catch behind the wicket to 20-year-old Mark Wallace off Darren Thomas for 113.

Tillakaratne, in contrast, accumulated runs rather sedately in his characteristic style. But with the departure of Sangakkara and the quick dismissals of both Tilan Samaraweera and Upul Chandana, he tried to accelerate towards his century and was out for 81, providing Wallace with his fourth catch and Wharf with his fourth wicket of the innings. Tillekeratne had batted for 253 minutes and faced 204 balls, hitting nine fours.

In contrast to the first session, which produced a stunning 170 runs, the second saw just 114. The final session was understandably slow, with the best blocker in the side at the wicket. With only five frontline batsmen and a long tail, understandably the majority of the runs came from the top four. The tail was exposed after Tillakaratne's dismissal and Sri Lanka lost five wickets for 37 runs.

Having taken only three wickets by tea when Sri Lanka were 284, the county bowlers hit back in the final session to capture four more for the addition of only 53 runs. Samaraweera and Chandana both missed out when they were dismissed for seven and one respectively. Wharf, returning for a fresh spell after tea, had Samaraweera caught by Adrian Dale with the score on 299, and seven runs later Chandana provided England discard, off-spinner Robert Croft, with his first wicket when he was caught behind by Wallace.

Earlier in the day, the cricket team management ran into some trouble over the composition of the team for this game when they included two players from outside the tour party. Sajeeva de Silva, a former Sri Lanka left-arm fast bowler and Pasan Wanasinghe, an all-rounder who toured Kenya with Sri Lanka A, were drafted in from the Lancashire leagues as cover for the four fast bowlers who were rested from this match.

With Ishara Amerasinghe going home suffering from a stress fracture in his back, the tourists were down to just one fit bowler, Eric Upashantha. With Dilhara Fernando playing his first competitive match for over a month, the tour management did not want to take a chance, in case he broke down.

Sri Lanka rested seven players from the Lord's Test - batsmen Marvan Atapattu, Mahela Jayawardene and Aravinda de Silva and fast bowlers Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Zoysa, Charitha Buddhika and Ruchira Perera. With Muttiah Muralitharan still recuperating from his arm injury, the tourists were struggling to put together a playing eleven. Thus the call for two players from outside.

However this did not meet favourably with the authorities in Colombo, who queried the selection, and team manager Chandra Schaffter was asked to explain.

Schaffter said: "We took this decision in the best interests of the team. We had to rest the four fast bowlers after their marathon stint at Lord's, which left us short of fast bowlers for this game."

Skipper Sanath Jayasuriya, declaring himself recovered from a thumb injury, set the tone for a run feast by the Sri Lankan batsmen when they ran up the thumping score of 170 for two wickets off just 35 overs by lunch.

Jayasuriya and Russell Arnold made short work of the county bowling, posting an opening stand of 97 off only 95 balls. Jayasuriya raced to his half century off just 44 balls, hitting four sixes and six fours, before falling to a catch behind the wicket to Wallace for 57.

Arnold also struck some lightning boundaries, eight in all, but missed out on a half century by four runs when he shuffled across to be trapped lbw by Alexander Wharf, the six foot, five inches tall fast bowler, who also took Jayasuriya's wicket.