Stage set for a day-five thriller

A Test match that Australia held firmly in its grip after a day now rests in forces far more fickle after Sri Lanka continued one of the games great fightbacks heading into its final phase.

While Kandy's infuriatingly inclement weather remains likely to have a significant say when day five begins with Australia 3-83 chasing 268 to win, this match will be decided by a simple head-to-head contest between Australia's batting in unfamiliar conditions and Sri Lanka's spin bowling on home turf.

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The preparation and practice that the touring team put into making sure they were equipped technically, mentally and morally for the first part of that equation should suggest the world's top-ranked Test team is well placed.

But the weight of history – both in so many previous failed campaigns in subcontinental conditions and the more contemporary 95 minutes that Australia batted before the afternoon clouds again foreshortened yesterday – has the hosts installed as clear favourites.

The only certainty entering the final stanza of a most absorbing Test is that rain and poor light will figure at some stage throughout Saturday, although the latter should not be an issue given the four huge light towers that were installed at Pallekele when it was built as a venue for the 2011 World Cup.

Unfortunately, an agreement as to how or if the lights could be employed during a designated daytime Test match could not be reached with the home Board and the floodlights stood as a dysfunctional mockery as hours of playing time were lost to poor light tonight.

A bureaucratic stumbling block that might haunt Sri Lanka should weather, or Australian batting obstinacy, mean the match ends without result tomorrow when a minimum 98 overs are scheduled, though no previous day has come close to delivering that quota.

For the manner in which Australia's second innings played out in the 95 minutes before the clouds closed in suggested those well-known batting frailties against spin on turning pitches remains unremedied.

Having been bowled for a duck aiming a feet-planted drive in the first innings, David Warner got dancing early in the second only to play all over a delivery from Sri Lanka's newest new-ball bowler Rangana Herath that went on with the arm and rattled his stumps.

Warner's match return of a single might be partially explained on the lack of batting he's been able to enjoy over the past six weeks due to his fractured index finger, but the loss of wickets against the new ball – even to spin – was something the Australians had marked to avoid.

Just as they had repeatedly pledged to curb their naturally aggressive tendencies, something that Warner, Steve Smith and Peter Nevill seemingly overlooked in the first innings and that accounted for Usman Khawaja in the second.

Picking a ball from off-spinner Dilruwan Perera of almost yorker length to try and sweep in front of square, Khawaja was struck on the left thigh in front of middle and leg stumps.

Which usually means the ball might be bouncing over the top, unless – as was Khawaja's dilemma – he's down on one knee when struck.

There was nothing quite so culpable in the removal of Joe Burns, who had appeared as comfortable as any Australia batsman at the crease during his 64-minute 29 but was clearly suffering from some sort of illness given the trouble he experienced running, breathing and standing up straight.

He had conquered those demons and even dared to lift Herath back over his head for a sweetly struck six, but had no answer to a vicious 'leg' break from rookie left-arm spinner Lakshan Sandakan that looked for all intents like a day five Shane Warne special in mirror image.

So short and wide on pitching that Burns saw a square cut boundary beckon, only to find the ball fizz ferociously back towards him like a swarm of wasps that he could only parry on to his leg stump in self defence.

At that stage Australia was 3-63 and more than 200 adrift, and staring at defeat when Adam Voges was – for the second time in the match – trapped in front from the first ball he faced and only allowed to continue his innings by the grace of the video review system.

His Bradmanesque average intact, but with cricket historians left to muse whether Eric Hollies' place in history would have been quickly airbrushed had DRS been a by-product of the second war.

As it stands, after a rare afternoon session without rain was instead lost to the thick cloud and equally opaque red tape, Voges (9no) and Smith (26no) will carry the responsibility of Australia's wobbly victory push when the game enters day five.

Smith's team had arrived at Pallekele Stadium prior to day four to find the regular afternoon bout of rain had beaten them there.

But they also knew that if the Test match that seemed fully within their control after the first day was not to slip away from them utterly, they needed to snatch an early wicket.

And not just either of the incumbent Sri Lankans, but quite specifically the diminutive 21-year-old Kusal Mendis who had singlehandedly dragged his team from the cusp of failure to the brink of an unthinkable recovery courtesy of his fearless, fluent century.

When play eventually got underway more than an hour late after a ritual laying and removing of the covers that resembled rehearsals for some elaborate opening ceremony, Mendis began as he had finished the previous evening – with a boundary off Starc's third ball of the day.

But it was not the polished, precise stroke that had seen him become the youngest player to take a Test 150 off an Australian bowling attack since then 19-year-old Graeme Pollock plundered 175 for South Africa at Adelaide Oval in 1964, prior to their ban from international cricket.

Rather it was a slash over slips that sent the second new ball flashing to the ropes, and when he aimed another loose drive at the start of Starc's next over the Australians had both the beginning and the man they wanted.

However, hopes that Sri Lanka's lower-order would capitulate against the refreshed and re-armed quicks in the same manner they had on day one were scuppered firstly by rain that sent the players from the field after half an hour with no further loss of wicket.

And then by some doggedly diligent tail-end resistance led by 38-year-old spinner Rangana Herath, who replaced Mendis in the middle and hung about for more than an hour before being last man dismissed for 35.

After Mendis departed, Sri Lanka's bowlers chipped in for 63 runs but of equal significance was the additional 11 overs of traffic from Australia's fast bowlers up and down the dry pitch that was becoming ever dryer despite the frequent showers, and had exhibited variable bounce since the moment the Test began.

It meant that Australia had to chase down 268 to win the Test, and with the best part of five sessions – Kandy's capricious weather permitting – left in the game this was an all-or-nothing scenario.

Successfully chasing targets beyond 250 in the fourth innings on a pitch consisting of anything other than vulcanised earth remains one of Test cricket's great challenges, and from where it gains its eponymous status.

It's only been done 13 times in the past decade, and only once by Australia – the 8-310 they posted in the final innings against South Africa at Wanderers in Johannesburg in 2011 when Mitchell Johnson got his team across the line with an unbeaten 40.

Upon embarking on their pursuit, the Australians were hoping they would not similarly need to call on one of their bowlers to bail them out with the bat, especially given that one of them – injured spinner Steve O'Keefe – is unlikely to bat unless the situation dictates.

But an hour after the start of their innings, that scenario had become far more likely.