Honours even after Marsh, Smith hundreds

Sri Lanka 355 and 22 for 1 (Karunaratne 8*, Silva 6*) trail Australia 379 (S Marsh 130, Smith 119, M Marsh 53, Herath 6-81) by 2 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

This was a handy day of Test cricket all round. Rangana Herath’s magic hands conjured six wickets. Mitchell Marsh’s hard hands cost him the chance for more than a fifty. Kusal Perera’s lightning hands effected two brilliant stumpings. Shaun Marsh and Steven Smith played invaluable hands, scoring Australia’s only two centuries of the series. And by the close of play on the third day in Colombo, it was impossible to say which team had the upper hand.

That, after a couple of walkovers in Pallekele and Galle, was a blessing. True, the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy will be presented to Angelo Mathews no matter what happens in this Test, but Smith and Marsh at least reduced the chances of a whitewash and made a contest of this match. And it is accurate to lay the credit entirely with those two men, for after their 246-run partnership ended, Australia’s last nine wickets tumbled for 112.

For the period of their union, it was as if Australia were playing a different series. The 2011 series, perhaps, when Marsh scored a century on debut and Australia lifted the trophy. The ball still turned, but Marsh and Smith handled it with aplomb, using their feet, finding the gaps, showing patience and respect. It was enough, along with the second fifty of Mitchell Marsh’s career, to give Australia a first-innings lead of 24.

By stumps, Sri Lanka had reduced that deficit to two runs, moving to 22 for 1. A change of openers did not improve their top-order record in this series. Dilruwan Perera, bumped up to open alongside Dimuth Karunaratne, was lbw when he offered no shot to a fast inswinger from Mitchell Starc. The score was 8 for 1, which remarkably was Sri Lanka’s biggest opening partnership of the series. At the close, Karunaratne was on 8 and Kaushal Silva had 6.

But this day was about the Smith-Marsh partnership, which became the fourth-highest stand for any Australian pair for any wicket in a Test in Asia. The most recent such occasion had also featured Marsh: on debut against Sri Lanka in Pallekele in 2011 he had put on 258 with Michael Hussey for the fourth wicket.

Since then Marsh has been the source of great frustration for Australia, his obvious talent and his ability to score Test centuries offset …

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