Silva half-century leaves contest evenly poised

Call it proactive captaincy or trying too many things, but Steve Smith ensured that Sri Lanka wouldn't be warmed to a specific set of plans. He kept shuffling his bowlers and set unorthodox fields on the penultimate day of the third Test.

Mitchell Starc charged in from over the wicket, as well as came from around the wicket. Nathan Lyon did the same too. At times, there were two fielders stationed around midwicket, and at times there were two close-in fielders. The plan worked to an extent in unsettling the batsmen, but didn't quite get the desired result for the visitors.

Kaushal Silva and Dinesh Chandimal displayed a cautious vigil to take the hosts to 187 for 5 at Tea on Day 4 of the third Test at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club on Tuesday (August 16).

Resuming their innings from 109 for 4, Sri Lanka lost the wicket of their skipper early. Angelo Mathews, for the second time in the match, departed while playing a sweep shot against Lyon. While he got a top edge in the first innings, this time around, the ball popped up in the air after hitting his gloves. Smith, who had dropped two catches in the first innings, made no mistake in pouching this one at first slip to send his counterpart back to the pavilion.

Meanwhile, Silva, who was nursing his split webbing periodically, displayed commendable resilience to keep the Sri Lankan charge afloat. After struggling through most parts of his innings, he stroked the ball confidently in the latter half. Against the spin duo of Lyon and Jon Holland, he stepped out to defend the ball from the pitch of it.

He brought up his 12th Test half-century with a steer towards the deep backward point region for a couple. The landmark came at the back of a poor run of scores - 4, 7, 5, 2 and 0 - in the series.

While Josh Hazlewood's four overs didn't prove too challenging for the Sri Lankan batsmen to deal with, Mitchell Marsh caused some problems with his deliveries that stopped on the way to the batsmen. A few beat the bat, a few fell short of the fielder at short cover and short point.

The left-arm spinner bowled a few loose deliveries towards the end of the session, which were rightly dispatched for boundaries by Silva. Sri Lanka added78 runs in the second session of the day, for the loss of a solitary wicket, extending their lead to 163 runs.

Earlier, two unfortunate dismissals in the first hour of play became the talking point of the morning session.
Dimuth Karunaratne and Silva walked out to resume Sri Lanka's second innings from their overnight score of 22 for 1. Even as they notched up their respective high scores of the series in the morning, the struggle against Lyon and Starc was evident. But it was an extremely clever stumping by Peter Nevill, one that borderlined on the 'spirit of cricket' discussion, which paved way for Karunaratne's dismissal. After being beaten by an offspin from Lyon, the left-hander casually lifted his back leg for a brief moment. Nevill waited just for the right moment to whip the bails off.

Soon after Karunaratne's departure, Silva was adjudged leg before to Lyon on 14. The batsman chose to review in an instant and survived after the replays found that the ball would have missed the stumps. While the right-hander continued to look out of sorts during his stay at the crease, it was Kusal Perera who hit some mesmerising strokes, none better than the reverse sweeps, which even left the bowler in awe.

After finding some generous runs with the shot, it eventually brought about his downfall too. In an attempt to reverse sweep, the ball lobbed up to the wicketkeeper. David Warner, stationed at forward short leg, seemed extremely convinced and persuaded his skipper to take a review after the batsman was adjudged not out.

The replays didn't present any conclusive evidence of a contact between the ball and bat, or the gloves. Evidently, the seam position of the ball didn't change either while crossing the bat. However, in a bizarre twist, and after a hard look, third umpire Richard Kettleborough decided to overturn the original decision. Not surprisingly, the hosts weren't too pleased with the call.

Kusal Mendis, who walked in at the fall of the third wicket, hit some lusty blows before being trapped leg before by Starc. The right-hander's innings, which included a boundary and two sixes, was short but the intent to attack the Australian bowlers from the start was obvious. However, as it turned out, the move didn't pay rich dividends for either the batsman or the hosts.

Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 355 (Dinesh Chandimal 132, Dhananjaya de Silva 129; Mitchell Starc 5-63, Nathan Lyon 3-110) and 187 for 5 (Kaushal Silva 78*; Mitchell Starc 2-45, Nathan Lyon 2-77) lead Australia 379 (Shaun Marsh 130, Steve Smith, 119; Rangana Herath 6-81) by 163 runs.