Australia
Another perfect day. The tail hung around long enough to take the lead almost beyond Sri Lankas capabilities. Then Ryan Harris turned in a brutish spell and had Sri Lanka tottering for the 2nd time in 2 days. Watson produced one ball of real note and that was good enough for Sangakkara. Lyon found out what test cricket in the sub continent is really about.
Micheal Clarke knows he is only 1 breakthrough away from possibly running through the rest. The first innings provided only 16 runs of resistance from the last 5 anyway. He will sleep well tonight
Sri Lanka
Squandered a chance to chase something reasonable when they leaked a 100 runs for the last 4 wickets. Herath got a 5fer. Not that anyone noticed.
Dilshan left a gap so big that Trent Copeland could have walked through it horizontally. Sangakkara was lucky to walk off with his head still in place. Samaraweera mucked around for a while without every really looking like he wanted to go anywhere. PJ completed a lovely pair. But in the midst of all that there was Jayawardene, muttering to himself, fighting, and getting more solid the longer his innings went on. Mathews finally came out with intention and looking to play straight. And lo and behold, he scored some runs.
Sri Lanka can’t win this, but at least they showed that there is still life in them.
Play of the day
Ricky bowling. And, well too. Appealing even. But nothing close to resembling a smile. Brilliant.
It’s not very often these days the Aussie team is cited as having a perfect day, so we’ll take that. After that first day, I was mildly concerned – only the dusty ol’ track made me feel slightly better.
And ’tis not often I am happy to concede that they are. Surely Sri Lanka can’t win from here. I will just be happy if the game goes past tea.