Rain – Sri Lanka’s only saviour

Saturday, 1 February 2025 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

State of play after lunch on third day of first Warne-Murali trophy Test at Galle Mitchell Starc and Australians celebrate wicket of Kamindu Mendis

Chandimal alone defies the Aussies

Dinesh Chandimal kept Australian

bowlers at bay with fighting knock of 63*

Rain, it seems at this point is going to be Sri Lanka’s only saviour of saving the first Warne-Murali Trophy Test at the Galle International Cricket Stadium.

Facing a daunting Australian first innings total of 654-6, Sri Lanka limped to 136-5 by lunch on the third day yesterday before the heavens opened out and denied any play for the rest of the day.

Sri Lanka still trail Australia by a massive 518 runs and they require a further 319 runs to make Australia bat again with their last recognised batsmen at the wicket.

Dinesh Chandimal was unbeaten on a defiant 63 scored off 115 balls (9 fours) and with him is Kusal Mendis on 10*. After this pair Sri Lanka has a long tail which has not contributed anything of note in recent Tests to offer some kind of resistance against the Aussies.

When play commenced on the third morning it was bright and sunny with blue skies all around and Australia were soon quick into the Lankan batting when Mitchell Starc dismissed Kamindu Mendis for 15 caught down the leg side trying to flick in the sixth over of the day.

Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva joined Chandimal and the pair were looking good adding 40 for the fifth wicket when de Silva (20) for no apparent reason pre-empted a charge at Matthew Kuhnemann and tossed his wicket away giving wicket-keeper Alex Carey an easy stumping. Both were soft dismissals which Sri Lanka could have done without.

Chandimal put some stability into the batting and played with great control reaching his 31st Test fifty off 91 balls (7 fours). He employed the sweep and reverse sweep to great effect and threw the Aussie bowlers off their lengths. “He’s batting beautifully at the moment, playing some lovely shots against all of us,” said Kuhnemann of Chandimal. “It’s just whether or not we try to block that boundary option for him and get him defending and try to get him out caught at bat-pad or slip, or whatever. I think if we bowl our best balls then hopefully the wicket can look after it for us.”

On the state of the wicket: “Time will tell with this wicket. I think it’s going to spin more and more as the game goes on but it’s still nice to bat on. They played some beautiful shots today, so we’ll come together tonight as myself, Gaz (Nathan Lyon) and Murph (Todd Murphy) and come up with a plan and stick to that. Hopefully, that can work to take the wickets to win this game.”

In the brief period he was at the wicket, Kusal Mendis looked good, but batting is only going to get harder as the game progresses with two days of the Test left. Only 27 overs were possible yesterday and the weather forecast for today is not so good with rain predicted.