Afghanistan reaches 90-2 at lunch on the opening day of only test against Sri Lanka

Afghanistan got off to a steady start by scoring 90 runs for two wickets at lunch on the opening day of the only cricket test match against Sri Lanka which began Friday.

Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva won the toss and asked Afghanistan to bat first at the Sinhalese Sports Club.

Fast bowler Asitha Fernando had early success when he had Ibrahim Zadran trapped lbw in the second delivery of the match without any runs on the board.

Noor Ali Zadran and Rahmat Shah added 57 runs for the second wicket before Ali Zadran (31) top-edged left-arm seamer Vishwa Fernando for a high running catch to the bowler himself.

Shah and Hashmatullah Shahidi batted until lunch in an unbroken 33-run stand. Shah was unbeaten on 48 at lunch, including seven boundaries, with Shahidi on 11.

It was the first ever test match to be played between the two nations since Afghanistan was admitted as a test-playing nation in 2018.

De Silva leads the test team for the fist time after taking over from long-time captain Dimuth Karunaratne, who played in the match as an opening batsman. Afghanistan handed test caps to Ali Zadran, who has played 51 one-day internationals, Zia ur Rehman, Mohammad Saleem and Naveed Zadran.

Seamer Chamika Gunasekara made his test debut for Sri Lanka.