With nimble footwork and soft hands, Brendan Taylor launched a counterattack © AFP

Having won a useful toss on a typical Harare surface, Zimbabwe's openers started off in an over-defensive manner. Sri Lanka's new-ball pairing of Suranga Lakmal and Vishwa Fernando were extremely accurate, with the former stitching together four maidens on the trot to begin with. While the bowling was disciplined, they were certainly helped by the lack of intent shown by Prince Masvaure and Kevin Kasuza.

The first 10 overs of the day produced a mere six runs with both the openers content to play it safe. It also meant that the Lankans were hardly under any pressure despite not picking up an early wicket. Lahiru Kumara, brought into the attack as the first change, then generated a lot of heat with his speeds, and it was his extra pace that gave Sri Lanka their first breakthrough, albeit off a harmless wide ball which Masvaure chased, to get a nick behind to Dickwella.

Craig Ervine tried to up the tempo, possibly to compensate for the team's slow going but it backfired as he was consumed at short leg off the steady part-time off spin of Dhananjaya de Silva. There wasn't too much help for the spinners but both de Silva and Lasith Embuldeniya stuck to their plans in terms of lines and lengths. Having lost a couple of quick wickets to an ultra-slow scoring rate, Zimbabwe were in danger of losing the plot but their best batsman Brendan Taylor had other ideas.

With nimble footwork and soft hands, he launched a counterattack, racing his way to an unbeaten 35-ball 41, even as Kasuza held firm at the other end with his dogged style of play. Taylor was particularly severe on both the spinners, charging down the pitch and using the depth of his crease to good effect to counter the duo's threats. His breakneck pace of scoring ensured that Zimbabwe eventually ended the session with a decent score on the board.

Brief scores: Zimbabwe 96/2 (Taylor 41*, Kasuza 33*) vs Sri Lanka