Lunch New Zealand 3 for 1 (Conway 2*, Peiris 1-1) and 88 (Santner 29, Jayasuriya 6-42, Peiris 3-33) trail Sri Lanka 602 for 6 dec by 511 runs
Nine wickets fell in the morning, including Tom Latham’s after New Zealand were asked to follow on. This forced Kane Williamson to bat twice in the same session. Before that, in their first innings, they had tried everything, but nothing worked once they resumed from the overnight score of 22 for 2.
Williamson and Ajaz Patel went defending, Rachin Ravindra looked to lap sweep, Tom Blundell tried the punch, Glenn Phillips flayed, Daryl Mitchell slogged, and Tim Southee pushed at the ball. But no matter what they did, all of them lost their wickets in quick succession.
A bit of rough was visible outside the batters’ off stump even on the second evening, with the ball turning and assisting the spinners already. Sri Lanka started the day with Jayasuriya bowling around the wicket to Williamson. The left-arm spinner pushed Williamson back on the third and fourth balls of the third over of the day, but then invited the batter forward with one that was tossed up, slightly fuller in length, and also slower. As a result, Williamson nicked to Dhananjaya off the shoulder of the bat.
Nightwatcher Ajaz looked the most assured among New Zealand’s batters in his 41-ball stay, even as Ravindra, at the other end, looked busy right after coming on to bat. But in the 24th over, Peiris bowled Ravindra with one that landed full on leg, and went on to hit the leg stump as he missed his attempted lap sweep.
From 41 for 3, New Zealand lost 6 for 27 in a defining batting collapse. Mitchell launched Jayasuriya for a boundary and a six off his first four balls, but was left seeing the drama unfold on the other side, as Peiris trapped Ajaz in front in the 26th over, before Blundell and Phillips edged to Dhananjaya off Jayasuriya’s next over.
Mitchell Santner arrived and repeated Mitchell’s dose with a four and a six each against Jayasuriya. Come the 31st over, Jayasuriya placed a long-on for Mitchell, on 13, as he promptly skipped down and lofted to Angelo Mathews there. That wicket gave Jayasuriya his ninth Test five-for, before he added one more to the tally by having Southee poke at slip.
With only one wicket standing, Santner hit three boundaries in the company of Will O’Rourke. But Peiris dropped one on a perfect in-between length around off, before turning it away and hitting the off stump.
Before lunch, Peiris had Latham inside-edging to short leg in the first over of the second innings to leave New Zealand at 3 for 1.
Himanshu Agrawal is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo