Second test Sri Lanka vs New Zealand
Play delayed due to overnight rain

Revata S. Silva in Kandy
After about a 15 minute inspection of the outfield of the saturated Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy, umpires Daryl Harper and Simon Taufel announced that they would do another such inspection at 1 p.m. to decide whether a start was possible for the second cricket test between Sri Lanka and New Zealand last morning. The entire day, last Saturday, which was the first day of the test, was called off by the umpires after the first inspection made by them at 9.30 a.m.

The pitch looked in good condition and the skies too looked bright in the morning but the Asgiriya outfield looked extremely muddy after considerable overnight rains. With a view to minimising the difficulties before having a start to the test, the organisers and the umpires had decided to pull the boundary line towards the inside of the ground, especially from the Point and the Third-man areas (when bowling from the Hunnasgiriya end), to avoid the worst affected areas in the outfield.

The ground staff, assisted amply by about 50 prisoners from the nearby Bogambara Prison, faced another peculiar obstacle in the morning. Thousands of worms that had reached the surface of the ground last night, when it was under covers, gave a messy look to the outfield. Some of them were long about a foot or more and the ground staff was involved in the hectic work of removing them one by one. The worms were scattered around the entire fielding area of the Stadium giving it a horrible look when watched from a close range.