Lunch Sri Lanka 499 for 8 (Chandimal 153*, Jayasuriya 0*) lead Australia 364 by 135 runs
Chandimal brought up his 150 from 281 balls, the third time he had gone past that mark in Galle, and had sights on his career-best 164, made against India in Delhi in 2017.
Progress was reasonably sedate from Sri Lanka, in a session where only 24 overs were bowled, with them content to bat as long as they could, knowing that run-scoring won’t get any easier. Chandimal and Ramesh Mendis took their seventh-wicket stand to 68 before Mitchell Starc struck with the first delivery of the third new ball, a swinging low full toss that caught Ramesh straight in front.
Two overs earlier, replays showed that Ramesh had survived an lbw appeal against Mitchell Swepson with Australia having no reviews left – something which played a key part in Sunday’s play when Chandimal edged behind on 30.
Thoughts of quickly running through Sri Lanka’s remaining wickets were frustrated by Maheesh Theekshana who showed stubbornness at No. 9 in his first Test innings. He was given caught behind against Starc by Kumar Dharmasena before scoring, but Sri Lanka had a review left and there was no spike on Ultra Edge, then he opened his account by sending Nathan Lyon over mid-off.
Pat Cummins eventually got one past Theekshana’s outside edge to rip out off stump, giving the Australia captain his 199th Test wicket.
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo