Crash and Burns: SL stung on record day

As was once said of London's emblematic double-decker buses, Australia's men's Test team waited the best part of a summer for the arrival of an individual century-maker.

And then found themselves confronted by two of them, at almost the same instant.

From a morning that briefly threatened to host a train wreck, opener Joe Burns (172 not out) and vice-captain Travis Head (161) flogged a pedestrian Sri Lanka to all parts of Manuka Oval to forge their own historic moments amid Australia's day one score of 4-384.

Burns became not only the first Australia batter to reach three figures in a Test match this season when he pushed a single to cover point shortly before tea, but therefore the first to post a ton in Canberra, which today became the nation's 11th Test cricket venue.

Less than an hour later, Head smoked a drive to the extra-cover rope to reach the milestone for the first time in his eight-Test career to date.

A moment that led to a prolonged hug with Burns, and a skyward glance in remembrance of his late South Australia teammate and close friend, Phillip Hughes.

After the home team showed familiar fragility against the swinging ball in the day's opening hour, during which they were reduced to 3-28 by a Sri Lanka attack with about as much Test experience as Manuka Oval, Burns and Head plundered 308 for the fourth wicket.

That union represented the most bountiful partnership for any wicket by an Australia Test pair since Shaun Marsh and Adam Voges helped themselves to 449 against an equally listless West Indies attack in Hobart three summers ago.

The fundamental difference between those two run gluts being that Marsh and Voges came together with a sizeable (121) score on the board and the ball well worn, while Burns and Head were confronted by a dire scoreline and a swinging ball not 10 overs old.

Which made the audacity of the pair's counter-attack all the more brazen.

The Sri Lankan spirits, so buoyant after the early triple strike, were already starting to wane by the day's first drinks break, by which time Burns and Head were scoring at around four an over and seizing every opportunity to push ever faster.

They were aided in that quest by some wayward bowling that often oscillated between rank long hops and gentle half-volleys, although the manner in which both batters played would have admittedly rendered many an attack toothless.

Burns pulled with authority and punched drives through the off-side field, while Head indulged his strengths behind point and through the covers while deftly nudging anything on his pads for runs on the on-side.

Burns was granted a life on 34 when he shaped to glide a ball from spinner Dilruwan Perera backward of point, but Dhananjaya de Silva couldn't grasp the sharp chance at slip.

It set a tone for the ensuing hours.

Head was similarly reprieved when the left-hander had reached 87, and feared he had squandered another chance of a maiden Test hundred the moment he guided a head-high catch towards Perera in the gully.

When he saw the ball burst through the fielder's hands and bounce safely on the turf, he surely sensed the milestone that had eluded him despite four previous innings in which he passed 50 was finally his for the grasping.

But it would be Burns who got there first, the fourth century of his 16-Test career – and first since he lost his place in the XI during Australia's previous disastrous series against Sri Lanka in 2016 – arriving from 147 balls, shortly before the pair posted their 200-run stand.

Head's breakthrough moment arrived seven overs later (from 155 balls faced), and he immediately launched into an array of strokes that included a searing straight six that struck the northern sightscreen.

The crowd of 8,556 who had turned out for Canberra's famous first day were then treated to some imperious shot-making from both players, as Head rode his luck on his way past 150.

He was spared by slow-motion technology after umpire Richard Illingworth felt he had squeezed a catch via his boot, but which was subsequently shown to have hit the ground, and again on 155 when Dhananjaya clutched clumsily at a return catch, and missed.

Head eventually fell lbw to end the epic stand, and Sri Lanka might have claimed another scalp immediately after when Kurtis Patterson (25 not at stumps) was missed at short leg – a reflex chance that didn't stick – from the first ball he faced.

The fact that the tourists ended the day by beating Patterson's bat several times with the second new-ball only served to underscore the wastefulness of their bowling through a bulk of the overs in between.

Although the circumstances under which their attack was compiled for this match might serve as some mitigation.

Since arriving in Hobart last month, Sri Lanka have churned through quicks Nuwan Pradeep (hamstring), Dushmantha Chameera (ankle), Lahiru Kumara (hamstring) and their best bowler from Brisbane, Suranga Lakmal, who failed a pre-game fitness test due to back soreness.

As a consequence, the three who were thrown into action when Tim Paine won just the second coin toss of his nine-Test captaincy and chose to bat – Kasun Rajitha, Vishwa Fernando and Chamika Karunaratne – boasted just 14 Test wickets and five caps between them.

Karunaratne having received his in the hour before play began, on the strength of 29 first-class appearances that had brought 59 wickets at an average of 34.

Which made the breakthrough he achieved with the fourth ball of his international career even more remarkable than the initial strikes made by his new teammate, Fernando.

Sri Lanka found themselves in the field after Paine made good his pre-game promise to try a new method in the hope of changing his wretched luck with the coin, and flipped the florin with his non-preferred left hand having spent half-an-hour rehearsing the move on match eve.

Any misgivings that Paine might have felt about batting in distinctly English conditions were amplified when his team made the worst start to a Test match since their infamous loss to South Africa in Hobart two summers ago.

Marcus Harris had made a brisk start and reached 11 from 18 balls faced until he lazily swatted at a full-wide delivery from Fernando that speared waist high to point.

In the left-armer's next over, Usman Khawaja aimed an even more languid drive at a ball that began outside off-stump and was swinging further away, until the batsman’s flashing edge sent it looping to second slip.

Marnus Labuschagne was the sole victim of that early carnage who could justly claim to have been beaten by quality bowling, to become Chamika's inaugural Test scalp.

Having edged the 22-year-old's initial outswinger wide of the slips cordon, Labuschagne then received consecutive balls that shaped into him before a textbook outswinger committed him to play, and took the edge to reduce Australia to 3-28.

At that point, Sri Lanka were understandably cock-a-hoop and the spectre of another Australia batting implosion against swing bowling became an uncomfortable prospect.

A hope that quickly vanished into the distance.

Rather like a London bus.

Australia XI: Marcus Harris, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head, Kurtis Patterson, Tim Paine (c/wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Jhye Richardson, Nathan Lyon

Sri Lanka XI: Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne, Dinesh Chandimal (c), Kusal Mendis, Kusal Perera, Dhananjaya de Silva, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Dilruwan Perera, Chamika Karunaratne, Vishwa Fernando, Kasun Rajitha

Domain Test Series v Sri Lanka

Australia: Tim Paine (c/wk), Joe Burns, Pat Cummins, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Kurtis Patterson, Will Pucovski, Jhye Richardson, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis

Sri Lanka: Dinesh Chandimal (c), Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Dhananjaya de Silva, Roshen Silva, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Kusal Perera, Dilruwan Perera, Lakshan Sandakan, Suranga Lakmal, Kasun Rajitha, Chamika Karunaratne, Vishwa Fernando

First Test: Australia won by an innings and 40 runs

Second Test: February 1-5, Canberra