He dabbed the Lyon delivery turning into him through the square leg region for a single, and roared his way to the other side of the pitch, jumping in the air to celebrate the three-figure mark. Quite unlike some of the other better knocks of his career, he curbed his natural instinct to bail his side out of trouble, taking 282 balls to reach his hundred.
The momentum of the third Test had completely shifted in favour of Sri Lanka by Stumps on Day 1, after having Sri Lanka reeling at 26 for 5 earlier in the day. De Silva's counter attack and Chandimal's patient half century had downed Australia's efforts of the first hour of play.
The sixth-wicket partnership was unbeaten on 188 when play resumed on Sunday (August 14) . However, the Sri Lankan duo decided to approach the start of the day slowly, blocking and leaving the deliveries with ease.
Australia started out with their two most threatening bowlers of the match - Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon. But a flurry of dot deliveries put pressure on the fielding side, instead of the batsmen as Starc lost his rhythm and sprayed the ball all over the pitch. Intended yorkers came as full toss to the batsmen. Yet, both of them curbed the temptation to play the big shots and took 40 minutes to collect the 12 runs to bring up their double century stand. It was the second double century partnership by Sri Lanka against Australia (the first one being by Arjuna Ranatunga and Asanka Gurusinha in 1992).
Lyon, too lost his rhythm and went a bit wayward as he kept dropping long hops, which the Sri Lankans didn't take adequate advantage of.
Three overs later, the partnership eventually came to an end as Lyon's delivery turned sharply to get the inside edge of De Silva's bat. As it turned out, it was Shaun Marsh, the man who had dropped him 23 overs earlier, who pounced it this time at forward short leg.
De Silva, who had notched up maiden Test ton, walked back to a standing ovation from the SSC crowd. He fell almost 24 hours after the last Sri Lankan wicket had fallen.
His departure gave way to a brief period of aggressive batting led by Dilruwan Perera, who kept giving the charge to the spinners. In the process, even Chandimal brought out a reverse sweep to send Lyon's delivery over the ropes for a six. The seventh-wicket stand didn't last long as Dilruwan holed out to Lyon at long off to hand Jon Holland his first wicket of the match.
Rangana Herath, who came in at No. 9, continued from where Dilruwan had left. However, after smacking a couple of boundaries, he settled in to block deliveries.
Chandimal steadily worked his way to a century, a ball before he was dropped by Steve Smith at first slip. He survived to remain unbeaten at Lunch, in company of Herath.
Despite a slow start and a slow end to the session, Sri Lanka managed to add 85 runs in the morning session, for the loss of two wickets.
Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 299 for 7 (Dhananjay de Silva 129*, Dinesh Chandimal 105* Mitchell Starc 3-63, Nathan Lyon 3-100) vs Australia.
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