Australia Dominates Sri Lanka by an Innings and 242 Runs in 1st Test at Galle

The current ICC World Test Champions Australia has dominated Sri Lanka in their home conditions in the first Test at Galle. Australia won the first Test by an innings and 242 runs on February 1. The Sri Lankan team batted twice but couldn't compete with Australia's massive first-innings total of 654/6. 

The Australian team was led by the stand-in captain Steven Smith. With this win against the hosts, Australia secured their 12th win in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle. The star batter Usman Khawaja, skipper Steven Smith, right-hand batter Josh Inglis, left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann, right-arm star spinner Nathan Lyon, and the left-arm fast bowler Mitchell Starc played key roles in the all-round performance to beat Sri Lanka.

Australia’s Batting Dominance

Australia won the toss and decided to bat first against Sri Lanka. The Australian opener Travis Head took charge early by scoring a quickfire knock of 57 runs in just 35 balls to give Australia a strong start. Usman Khawaja played his innings in a calm and composed manner, while Marnus Labuschagne fell for just 20 runs.

The skipper Steven Smith joined with the opener Khawaja and together built a massive 266-run partnership. During this Knock, Smith reached a historic milestone of 10,000 Test runs and got dismissed on 141. Meanwhile, the star batter Khawaja scored his first-ever double-century. And the debutant Josh Inglis also made his mark in Test cricket with a century as Australia declared at 654/6.

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Sri Lanka Struggle with the Bat

In the first innings, Sri Lanka could only manage to score 165 runs with Dinesh Chandimal scoring the lone half-century. The star Australian spinner Kuhnemann was too good with his excellent bowling to trouble Sri Lanka's batting lineup without giving any chance to score runs. And Kuhnemann took 5 wicket haul against Sri Lanka.

Spinners secure an innings win for Australia in the first Test against Sri Lanka 👌#WTC25 | #SLvAUS 📝: https://t.co/8NKpfnNf96 pic.twitter.com/KB1z31zofV

— ICC (@ICC) February 1, 2025

In the second innings, Sri Lanka showed more fight but still fell short against Australia. Sri Lanka was bowled out for just 247 runs with Jeffrey being the only batter to score fifty. The Australian spinners Nathan Lyon and Kuhnemann bowled out the Sri Lankan batting lineup and they both took four wickets each. Austalia's dominant performance sealed a massive victory against Sri Lanka.

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