Herath bowls Sri Lanka to historic victory

Sri Lanka 117 (Lyon 3-12, Hazlewood 3-21) and 353 (Mendis 176, Starc 4-84) beat Australia 203 (Voges 47, Herath 4-49, Sandakan 4-58) and 161 (Smith 55, Herath 5-54) by 106 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

Tonight, Sri Lanka are gonna party like it’s 1999. Specifically, like it’s September 11, 1999, the only other date on which they have beaten Australia in a Test. That victory came in Kandy with an XI full of Sri Lankan greats – Aravinda de Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas. This win, up the road in Pallekele, is all the more remarkable for the dearth of such legends. Then again, it could be the making of some new ones.

Kumar Sangakkara never played in a win over Australia, and the retirements of Sangakkara and Jayawardene seemed to mark the end of an era for Sri Lanka. And yet, from the depths of seventh on the Test rankings they have found a way to overcome the No.1 team in the world. Excitingly, new men played major roles. Kusal Mendis, in his seventh Test, turned the game with his jaw-dropping 176. Debutant Lakshan Sandakan claimed seven wickets with his left-arm wrist-spin.

But there was one link to the previous win: Rangana Herath was there in Kandy in 1999, a 21-year-old sitting in the rooms, waiting for a Test debut that would come in the next match in Galle. Seventeen years later, a 300-wicket bowler whose hair is flecked with grey, Herath played a key role in securing this win. His nine wickets for the match including 5 for 54 in the second innings, and fittingly he claimed the wicket that sealed the game.

Steve O’Keefe, who had stacked up more blocks than Legoland, leaned forward and tried to flick Herath through leg, only to be bowled for 4 from 98 deliveries. The Sri Lankans were jubilant. They had beaten not only Australia but the weather; the looming threat of bad light had hovered overhead as the afternoon wore on, as O’Keefe and Peter Nevill compiled a partnership of incredible fight.

Australia’s penultimate pair batted together for 178 balls for just four runs, a boundary scored by O’Keefe, whose hamstring injury prevented him from running. There were so many dots the scorecard could have been diagnosed with chicken pox, but as they accumulated it was the Sri Lankans who began to feel sick. Would this opportunity slip away? …

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