IT was no less than dull and dreary proceedings on the first day of the Test series opener here on Thursday.

The Sri Lankans — struggling against some tight bowling by Pakistan — batted at a funeral pace and kept their innings intact to build on when play resumes today at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

A lacklustre day with not many spectators at the picturesque venue, however, was highlighted by a disciplined innings by experienced opener Dimuth Karunaratne. He pushed and nudged for over five hours stealing singles and twos to keep the innings going after Sri Lanka had lost three wickets during the first session.

The left-hander’s tactics of placing his shots in the gaps with gentle push and with not much power worked as he with skipper Dinesh Chandimal walked off to tea by making sure that no further damage was done in the second session.

That really didn’t bother much Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed much who continued with his policy of bringing bowling changes hoping for more wickets.

Little however came his way as the wicket offered negligible help to either Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Abbas, Hasan Ali, or the spinners led by Yasir Shah and the rest who bowled a good line to make the proceedings even slower.

This was a kind of anti-climax for some who had something different to experience at this venue in 2014 when former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq hammered Australian bowlers for a 56-ball century to equal then-fastest century record held by West Indian great Sir Vivian Richards.

Different situations or conditions however get different treatment; and perhaps for the present Sri Lankans with a disappointing last couple of home series -- against India and Bangladesh — this is what they had on offer to last the day applying their planned tactics which may be for the safety first as a priority to survive.

Haris Sohail, the lucky debutant for Pakistan, was used too as a left-arm spinner but perhaps a specialist spinner -- to partner Yasir Shah — would have been a better choice as the leg-spinner despite the dead nature of the track helped himself to a couple of wickets with his deceptive mixture of leg-breaks and flippers.

The pitch here does have the tendency to behave in an odd way as the match progresses and therefore it is important that a unreliable-looking Sri Lankan batting line-up tries to stay at the wicket as long as possible in order to post a respectable score against Pakistan who look relatively better equipped compared to their opponents.

Karunaratne’s 93 before he ran himself out and his partnership with Chandimal (60 not out) producing a hundred runs for the fourth wicket therefore will have a lot of bearing on what the visitors finish with.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2017