Silva century pushes Sri Lanka near 300 lead

Sri Lanka 355 and 312 for 8 (Silva 115, Lyon 4-123) lead Australia 379 by 288 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

For the past three weeks, Kaushal Silva has been stuck in an unhappy singles party that threatened never to end. 4, 7, 5, 2 and 0 – those were his scores for this series. Remember that Silva is an opening batsman. For an opening batsman, such numbers are not good. They are not even good enough to be called “not bad”. In his final innings of the series, Silva again did not make a double-figure score. And Sri Lanka were thrilled.

The 115 that Silva compiled on the penultimate day of this campaign was as valuable as it was unexpected. Sri Lanka began the day one wicket down, still trailing by two runs. The morning session would be critical. Within ten overs, another wicket had fallen, the sharp-eyed Peter Nevill pouncing on Dimuth Karunaratne’s lifted foot like an Olympic walking judge. Nevill’s stumping was legal, if a little provocative, and Sri Lanka still had much work to do.

The trophy is theirs, but to complete a historic whitewash Sri Lanka had to set Australia a target that gave their bowlers a chance. When two more wickets fell before lunch, Australia were dreaming of a quick demolition of the lower order and a face-saving chase. And yet by stumps they had still not dismissed the Sri Lankans, who were 312 for 8 – Dhananjaya de Silva was on 44 and Suranga Lakmal yet to score – and leading by 288.

Once upon a time, Australia scored more than that in the fourth innings of a Test in Asia. Emphasis on the once. The only time that has happened – win, lose or draw – was in 2006 in Fatullah, when they made 307 in a successful chase. But that was against Bangladesh, with a team full of champions, and even then they made hard work of it, losing seven wickets along the way.

A more relevant comparison, perhaps, concerns their chances of batting out a draw. In the first Test of this series, Australia survived 88 overs in the fourth innings, failing to avoid defeat but at least proving that crease occupation can be achieved. If victory is out of reach on day five in Colombo, maybe the Australians should all imagine themselves hamstrung, like Steve O’Keefe in that game. Forget running, just block it out.

Full report to follow

Kaushal Silva’s first half-century of the series – his first double-figure score of the series, actually – pushed …

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