SL vs AUS | Lions return Oz favour in kind with another collapse to end Day 3 with defeat imminent

‌Brief score:SL 257 & 211/8 (Mathews 76, Mendis; Kuhnemann 4/52) lead AUS 411 (Carey 156, Smith 131; Jayasuriya 5/151) by 54 runs  

The day began ominously for Australia, despite an overnight stand of nearly 250 between two incumbent centurions, as the first runs of the morning came through a thick inside edge off Steve Smith's bat. So it translated too as the demons of the pitch finally caught up with the seemingly invincible visitors and a sharp-turner from Prabath Jayasuriya finally managed to find Smith's outside edge that was pouched safely by Kusal Mendus behind the stumps. The Lankan spinner made it a double whammy two balls later with a quicker one that slide past a scampering Josh Inglis to resign him to a duck after a century on debut. Nevertheless, Carey kept ticking along to bring up a maiden 150 in his professional career, and became just the fourth Australian wicket-keeper to achieve the feat in Test cricket. However, the sweep finally betrayed him in the 93rd over to hand Jayasuriya a fourth and Carey walked off to a rousing ovation. In stark contrast, debutant Cooper Connolly failed to come to terms with the magnamity of the occassion and Beau Webster suddenly found himself with the responsibility of shepherding the tail at 384/7. The all-rounder did well to rattle off 31 runs until Ramesh Mendis produced the perfect off-spinner's delivery to spin one between bat and pad and rattle the stumps as Australia folded out for 411 to signal Lunch.

Tasked with chipping away at the 157-run deficit, Pathum Nissanka walked out with vigour and creamed two gorgeous boundaries in the very first over by Mitchelll Starc. However, doom arrived just as quickly, with Kuhnemann needing just three deliveries to slide a quicker one straight into the stumps. With the pitch growing ever-drier and footsteps beginning to make their presence felt, Dinesh Chadimal and Dimuth Karunaratne found the going difficult in their 24-run stand. Kuhnemann ultimately ended the latter's misery by getting the retiring batter to nick off to Carey and in a wholesome gesture, the entire Australian team stood shoulder by shoulder to applaud the Lankan legend off the field. The applause in the stands continued when Chandimal shortly after threw away his wicket with an aimless lob to mid-off to leave the score reading 31/3. The pressure from the Oz spinners kept mounting thereafter and even though Kamindu Mendis tried to dig in, he eventually couldn't hold back from trying to hit Lyon over covers on the brink of Tea and thus ended what had been a promising 50-run stand with Angelo Mathews.

The veteran was not having an easy time out in the middle either but survived a plethora of close calls to bring up a 55th Test fifty, building another decent 46-run stand with Dhananjaya de Silva post-Tea, until a blinder from Smith at slip ended the latter's stay for 23. Kusal Mendis thus walked in at 123/5 and decided to take the counter-attacking route, smashing Lyon for six followed by a boundary in the 49th over to take Lanka back into the lead. The varying styes of the duo seemed to be enough to take the hosts home for the day, until Mathews took inspiration from his partner and holed out trying to slog Lyon with less than 10 minutes to go. In the next over, Webster claimed his first Test victim with off-spin as Ramesh bat-padded one to short leg without troubling the scorers and Kuhnemann made Jayasuriya his fourth scalp on the last ball to end the day on a high.

Gone

Master

Runs dried

Great end

Tactical

Never ever

Not bad

Oh Lord!

Poor