Debutant Prabath Jayasuriya’s magnificent six-fer on Day 4 of the second Test drowned Australia to just 151 all out and helped Sri Lanka level the two-match series with a victory by an innings in Galle. The left-arm spinner ran through the visitors’ batting unit and made sure his team ended with series parity after conceding an irrevocable 1-0 advantage in the previous Test.
The Australians got bundled out in just 41 overs on the fourth afternoon, with Jayasuriya giving them a scary reminder of their troubles against the turning ball on dry, subcontinent pitches. In his 16-over outing, the 30-year-old dismissed big fishes Usman Khawaja (29), Marnus Labuschagne (32), Steve Smith (0), and Cameron Green (23) and returned to the shed with astonishing figures of 6 for 59.
While Jayasuriya was the protagonist of the collapse, it helped Sri Lanka a great deal that they had fellow tweakers Maheesh Theekshana (2/28) and Ramesh Mendis (2/47) to maintain immense pressure on the hosts. The Theekshana-Mendis duo gave the tourists absolutely no breathing space in the middle, and they eventually collapsed to one of their lowest scores in Asia.
While the quality of the bowling on display was outstanding, the Australians made matters worse by failing to convert their starts. Khawaja, Labuschagne, Green, David Warner (24) and Alex Carey (16*) all got in but couldn’t play the substantial knocks that the tourists needed to keep themselves in the game.
The Australians were guilty of leaving runs in the middle even in the first-innings where they were all out for 364 and didn’t get a score in excess of 450-500 despite finding themselves in a position to do so at 238/3 at one point in time.
Labuschagne scripted his maiden century away from home in Test cricket with a well-compiled 104, while Smith returned to his bumper scoring ways with an unbeaten 145. The modern-day batting great took his average back to where it belonged for the major part of his career. He is again averaging 60 with 8,161 runs, which is remarkable for a player that experts felt wouldn’t survive long with his unorthodox methods and technique.
Despite tons from Labuschagne and Smith, however, the Aussies failed to make it past the 400-mark as the next highest score for the innings was only 37 from Khawaja. Carey, with 28, was the only other Australian batter to enter the twenties, which meant the Aussies were giving the opposition a foot in the door.
Like in the second-innings, Jayasuriya finished with a six-fer, 6 for 118, even in the first half of the Test match and found support from seamer Kasun Rajitha (2/70) in ensuring Sri Lanka didn’t let the tourists run away with the game.
With the surface still good enough for batting, the Sri Lankans rubbed salt into the Aussie wounds by compiling a gigantic 554 in their turn to bat. Captain Dimuth Karunaratne (86) led the charge at the top and was backed up wonderfully by Kusal Mendis (85), Angelo Matthews (52) and Kamindu Mendis (61).
But the innings that truly took the game out of Australia’s grasp was played by Dinesh Chandimal, who smashed his maiden double Test century, scoring an unbeaten 206 off 326 deliveries. The right-hand batter rejuvenated his dwindling Test career with a timely milestone under his belt and enabled a massive lead of 190 runs for the hosts.
Brief scores
Australia 364/10 (Smith 145*, Labuschagne 104; Jayasuriya 6/118) & 151/10 (Labuschagne 32; Jayasuriya 6/59, Theekshana 2/28) lost to Sri Lanka 554/10 (Chandimal 206*, Karunaratne 86; Starc 4/89) by an innings & 39 runs
