On the Old Trafford ground where Shane Warne bowled the ‘Ball of the Century’ in 1993, Sri Lanka spinner Prabath Jayasuriya made a bid for the modern-day equivalent by dismissing England’s Harry Brook in stunning style on Thursday.
Brook had been in fine touch while making an unbeaten fifty to take England to 176-4 at tea on the second day of the first Test, a first-innings deficit of just 60 runs.
But the 25-year-old rising star of English cricket had added just three runs to his interval 53 when he was turned inside out by a ball from left-armer Jayasuriya that dipped in on the line of middle and leg stumps before spinning sharply and bouncing to clip the top of off stump.
Take a bow Prabath Jayasuriya ?
What a delivery to remove Harry Brook for 56 ? #ENGvsSL #TestCricket pic.twitter.com/1VlYJsZ1Kw
— Mr. Ali shaikh (@MrAlishaikh7) August 22, 2024
Brook’s exit left England 187-5, still 49 runs adrift of Sri Lanka’s 236 in the first of this three-Test series.
Australia leg-spin great Warne, who died aged 52 two years ago, marked his first ball in Ashes cricket with a celebrated delivery at Old Trafford that pitched outside leg-stump and then spun viciously across Mike Gatting to clip the off-bail.
So bemused was Gatting by his dismissal that the late Richie Benaud, himself a former Australia leg-spinner, remarked during his television commentary: “Gatting has absolutely no idea what has happened to him — and he still doesn’t know.”
© Agence France-Presse
Photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images
