The visitors got off to a quick start with Warner depositing Dilruwan Perera's full toss into the stands off the first ball. However, his stay at the crease didn't last long as his charge was well read by Dhananjaya de Silva, who fired the ball short and he got the bottom edge of the bat to the wicketkeeper. Before the umpire could raise his finger, the left-hander headed back to the pavilion.
Steve Smith and Shaun Marsh then saw through the remaining 10 minutes of play safely as Australia went into Tea without any further loss.
Having revived Sri Lanka's innings, Dinesh Chandimal's 480-minute vigil at the crease came to an end as he lazily threw his bat at Mitchell Starc's full delivery outside off and ended up getting an outside edge to the wicketkeeper. His knock along with de Silva's maiden century laid the foundation for Sri Lanka's first innings total of 355.
Resuming the innings at 299 for 7 after Lunch, Sri Lanka moved along slowly - making it clear that they wanted to keep the Australians on the field for as long as they could to sap them out in the afternoon heat. Chandimal and Rangana Herath didn't go for the heaves or the slog sweeps. They defended for 27 overs and scored 73 for the eighth wicket.
Herath even got a reprieve when Smith dropped a regulation catch at slips - his second dropped catch of the day. Soon after Lunch there was a rain interruption for about 25 minutes, however no overs were lost.
His departure paved way for a collapse. Starc, who was brought back into the attack in the 140th over, managed to end Chandimal's 356-ball innings on 132 off his fourth ball.
In his next over, he again managed to induce an outside edge - this time off Suranga Lakmal - as the ball flew to Mitchell Marsh at gully. The wicket gave Starc his third consecutive five-wicket haul in the series.
Earlier in the day, Australia started out with their two most threatening bowlers of the match - 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.
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 pouched 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.
Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 355 (Dinesh Chandimal 132, Dhananjaya de Silva 129; Mitchell Starc 5-63, Nathan Lyon 3-110) lead Australia 27/1 by 328 runs.
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