That’s it for today. Thanks for joining us for a great day’s play.
Here’s our match report:
Stumps - Sri Lanka 229-9
That is that. Remarkably, we actually saw the full 90 overs in from Australia in a day of Test cricket. That was with 74 overs of spin, and they still needed 22 of the extra 30 minutes.
Sri Lanka did really well to recover, and really badly to need recovery. Won the toss and batted on a pitch that looked pretty docile at first with the risk of falling apart quickly like the first Test.
The hosts at one stage had only lost one wicket with 93 on the board. But they lost 4 for 33 from that point, then a while later lost their man man Dinesh Chandimal, and later again they lost another rush of 3 for 9.
They’ve built their score on Chandimal’s 74 and Kusal’s 59 not out, with his remaining chance to smack a few more tomorrow. Karunaratne made 36 up top and Ramesh Mendis an important 28 to help Kusal. That’s about it.
So they’ve spurned the chance to go big, but if they could burgle 250 and the pitch falls apart on Day 2, they might still challenge Australia.
In the meantime, Lyon and Kuhnemann have bowled 30 overs each, Starc 16, so they’ll be tired, while the fourth “bowler” in Connolly has sent down three overs in an entire day, while Head has bowled eight.
We’ll be back tomorrow, see you then.
