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Oz on top in Kandy despite the rain

Pallekele - Australia forced home an early advantage on Day 1 of the first Test against Sri Lanka in Kandy despite losing the whole evening session to rain.

The tourists bowled Sri Lanka out for 117 in just 34.2 overs after Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first. Angelo Mathew's men's first innings is the shortest ever innings by a Sri Lankan side who have elected to bat first.

On a day of firsts, both Sri Lankan openers were out for single digit scores, something that has never previously happened to Sri Lanka at home.

Dimuth Karunaratne was the first to go, the opener chose to review the umpire's decision to give him out lbw to Mitchell Starc, but he was trapped straight in front and had to go.

Sri Lanka's top scorer was Dhananjaya de Silva who managed a modest 24 before he was caught at short leg off the bowling of Nathan Lyon.

Lyon would finish as the pick of the Australia bowlers as he took just three overs to return figures of 3 for 12 as he wrapped up the tail with fellow tweaker Steve O'Keefe, who took 2 for 32 from 10.2 overs.

Starc and fellow opening bowler Josh Hazlewood did the damage up front as the left-armer took 2 for 51 while his partner managed 3 for 21 as Sri Lanka weakly capitulated.

Two early strikes would have given the Sri Lankans some hope as Nuwan Pradeep bowled David Warner for a duck and Rangana Herath castled Joe Burns for just 5 but Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith steadied the ship taking Australia to 66 for 2 at tea before steady rain put an end to the day's play with Australia in control.

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