Day 2: Galle
All eyes were on the pitch when play began. It still looked the same as yesterday, resembling a patchwork quilt of baked mud. Would the fun and games begin? If so, when? Starc was not called upon, as Smith opted for Lyon and Kuhnemann. But the day began well for the home side. Kusal Mendis farmed the strike expertly while Lahiru Kumara defended with the most somnolent of bats. When there was something to hit, Mendis hit it. The score mounted past 250. Mendis turned down a great many singles; but his eventual decision to offer his doughty partner three balls an over shipwrecked as Kuhnemann took the edge of the fast bowler’s bat, and Webster did the rest at second slip. Still, 257 didn’t seem a bad score under the circumstances. Kusal’s unbeaten 85 was an innings of the highest quality. He could have done with more help from his team-mates.
Head began by joyfully hopping into Kumara, whose opening two overs cost 17. But Peiris, whose off-breaks had gone unrewarded in the last game, took the edge of Head’s bat after the latter had run down the pitch as if attempting to catch the last train home. Caught at slip for a run-a-ball 21 was less than the visitors had hoped for. Then Labuschagne found himself trapped on the back foot by Jayasuriya’s arm-ball. The umpire gave it not out, but de Silva’s review was upheld. At 2/37 the ground was shifting beneath the visitors’ feet. Khawaja and Smith steadied the innings until Peiris trapped Khawaja in front; and at 3/91 there was still plenty of work to do. But the tropical sun is a fickle beast. Carey was sent in next, since Inglis had a strained fetlock of some description; and also because the Australian keeper is a left-hander. And that was all she wrote for the perspiring attack. By stumps both men were well past a hundred, and at 3/330 Australia is back in the familiar position of dominating the match.
How on earth was this possible? Anyone offering odds on an unbeaten stand of 239 would have struggled to find takers at 50/1. Some deliveries took off like mortar shells. Unplayable spinners appeared and disappeared like Black Dog in Treasure Island. And yet Smith and Carey brushed aside the occasional stick of dynamite lobbed their way and batted all the rest of the day without, it would seem, a care in the world. The sun’s shining; we’re having fun doing our favourite thing; why on earth should we be worried? Smith cover-drove, he glanced, he even reverse-swept. When he was given out to Peiris he at once reviewed, and the third umpire decided in his favour. It is his fourth century in his last five games. The time his career looked over now seems to belong to a different slice of history in the Trousers Of Time.
Carey? He swept more often than Jo the Crossing Sweeper from Bleak House. At times he drove as well; but mostly he swept. It is his favourite stroke, after all. And Sri Lanka could not contain him. Arguably they bowled too slowly: around 5 ks per hour slower than Lyon and Kuhnemann. On a docile wicket you need to make the ball bite and spin; and you should aim where possible not to give the batsman time to advance down the pitch and club you into oblivion. Carey’s unbeaten 139 has come at close to a run a ball. Half of it came in boundaries. The remainder came from his constant rotation of the strike with his gleeful skipper. Sri Lanka are not out of the game yet. But they are facing an all too familiar abyss. Two more sessions of batting from Australia and it will doubtless be another heavy defeat. Dimuth Karunaratne deserves better in his hundredth and final Test. Perchance his team-mates may yet rise to the occasion.