Starc strike ends tense third day

The scope of the issues that face Australia in trying to find a proven method of winning Tests in Asian conditions is perhaps best illustrated by the observation that over the past day they unfurled their best batting effort by far in a series that was forecast to deliver a vastly different result.

And yet the world’s top-ranked Test team – a title they will surrender to either Pakistan or India with another defeat here in Colombo – still find themselves level pegging with their seventh-ranked opponents Sri Lanka, who must fancy their chances of completing an unprecedented three-nil series sweep over the next two days.

A record second-wicket partnership between Shaun Marsh and Steve Smith and Mitchell Marsh’s first Test half-century since his maiden series two years ago should have provided the basis for Australia to make the running in this dead-rubber match.

But instead they will begin day four clutching an ascendancy of just two runs and a further nine Sri Lankan wickets in front of them after their patient and productive first innings finished at 379 just a handful of overs before stumps on day three.

That skinny lead was almost solely attributable to the deeds of the only two batters in this series to have shown any consistent suggestion they have a 'game plan' to counter the workplace conditions of the subcontinent – captain Smith (119) and increasingly competent and comfortable all-rounder Mitchell Marsh (53).

And, of course, the innings’ top-scorer Shaun Marsh, whose 130 on his recall to the team - having lost his place in the immediate aftermath of the century he posted in his previous innings - underscored how vital he must become for Australia’s future Asian aspirations.

Quick Single: Marsh shines again in Test return

The job that Marsh (senior) and Smith undertook to drag Australia back into this intriguingly poised match stood at odds with the now familiar capitulation of most others charged with posting meaningful scores.

From contemplating the prospect of maybe only needing to bat once in this Test at 1-267 and just 88 runs adrift, the tourists lost 9-112 with the bowler they have put most time and effort into negating – veteran left-arm spinner Rangana Herath – claiming six of those.

With 21 wickets at 13.95 and the possibility of another full Australian innings at which to take aim, Herath stands poised to record the most successful three-Test series by any bowler against Australia since his compatriot Muthiah Muralidaran claimed 28 in a losing campaign at home in 2004.

For a period today, and for sizeable chunks of the previous two, the blueprint that Australia outlined in the weeks before the series began was translated into practical results a matter of sessions before the Test campaign was over.

The call for bowlers to attack the stumps and quell scoring when wickets were tough to manufacture saw Sri Lanka’s scoring rate in the first innings drop below three runs per over for the only time in the series to date.

The need to be patient but to avoid becoming becalmed by rotating the strike and directing the ball into the gaps created through the application of batting pressure saw Marsh and Smith rattle along at more than three an over.

But with only a boundary every three overs on average, or thereabouts.

And the imperative of building partnerships to dictate the game’s tempo and avoid the freefall of wickets that so often characterise a subcontinental calamity that led the pair to post the highest stand (246) that Australia has managed for any wicket in Tests played in Sri Lanka.

As the pair carried their team’s total within double digits of Sri Lanka’s once imposing 355 and the home team’s multi-pronged spin attack that had appeared as foreign to the touring batsmen as give-way laws are to Colombo’s trishaw drivers was rendered not just mortal, but very readable.

However, there were a couple of caveats to be noted before the Australians’ Asian affliction can be said to be easing with any confidence.

Among them are factors such as a Colombo pitch that has held together much more soundly than its flaky crease regions, and the tourists growing familiarity with the local bowlers.

As shown by wrist spinner Lakshan Sandakan, whose 'mystery' has diminished to the point that he went wicketless in this innings after managing just one in either dig at Galle last week.

But the primary reason was the session in which Australia’s dual century makers appeared most in control – from the resumption this morning at 1-141 until the taking of lunch at 1-235 – coincided with the reduced impact of Sri Lanka’s chief tormentor Herath.

The 38-year-old spinner, his team’s leading wicket-taker for the series who took 14 wickets in a Test against Pakistan at the same venue a year ago, had suffered the pain and indignity of a blow to the 'rambutans' while batting against Australia seamer Josh Hazlewood the previous evening.

A knock that saw him unable to continue batting, and rendered him absent from the bowling crease at the start of Sri Lanka’s bowling innings last night.

He took up the attack when play resumed today but appeared troubled by an injury to his left leg, and after bowling nine overs in the first hour of play he again headed to the dressing room for further attention. 

During his absence, Marsh and Smith reached Australia’s first 200-run partnership for any wicket on Asian soil since the previous tour to Sri Lanka five years earlier.

When Marsh, then at the outset of a career that looked to hang heavy with promise, joined with Michael Hussey to add 258 in his maiden Test innings at Pallekele.

But then Herath returned, and so did the wobbles the Australians had hoped they’d left behind in Galle.

Gifted a life on 121 after the arrival of the second new-ball brought with it a rare sighting of the Sri Lanka seamers and their leader Suranga Lakmal, who was employed in this Test as his team’s third-change bowler, induced a sliced head-high catch to gully that ended up at the third man boundary.

Lakmal made the breakthrough in his next over when Marsh found himself caught in the sort of tired decision-making cloud to which someone who has stood in the stifling heat for five hours is entitled when his late call to withdraw his bat brought only a bottom edge on to his stumps.

Enter Herath, who took the ball at just five overs old and with his second delivery lured Smith sufficiently forward for his back foot to drag beyond the crumbling crease line and replacement ‘keeper (and incumbent opener) Kusal Perera did the rest.

Perera had taken the gloves in place of vice-captain Dinesh Chandimal, who was unsurprisingly suffering from dehydration and fatigue after batting almost eight hours and whose presence today was restricted to occasional fielding stints on the deep mid-wicket boundary.

The value of having a second specialist gloveman in the XI became even more apparent four overs later when Moises Henriques – elevated above fellow allrounder Mitchell Marsh in the batting order – fell in identical fashion to his skipper.

Only with 115 runs fewer to his name.

Having tricked Australia’s batters into playing for spin that rarely manifested in the first two Tests, the wily Herath delivered a series of sucker punches that saw him collect 3-18 in barely 10 overs and Australia stumbled from 1-267 to 5-316 when Adam Voges perished in the first over after tea.

Which saw Voges’ Test batting average plummet from an unheard of 95.50 at series start to a still scarcely believable 75.50 after a series that has exemplified why Sir Donald Bradman’s career mark of 99.94 will never be seriously challenged.

Within sight of their first surplus since the second day of the series at Pallekele, Australia lost Peter Nevill to yet another dismissal 'on the outside of the bat', a mode of getting out that Smith had indicated he was prepared to cop after so many fell on the 'inside' over the previous weeks.

But his series batting return – with a maximum of one innings to radically address it – of 49 runs at an average of 9.80 is one of the line items likely to feature in the obligatory end-of-tour review.

Indeed, with the exception of today’s stand-out batsmen, the only other player to emerge free of scrutiny will be Mitchell Starc who once again found himself at the bowling crease with scarcely a day’s rest and made his customary first-over breakthrough.

Knowing he’ll need to do it early and often tomorrow if a positive result can follow the encouraging signs of recent days.