Warner falls on stroke of stumps

Australia enters day two of the crucial second Test in Sri Lanka in an eerily similar position to that which they found themselves before last week’s first Test became a disaster.

Having lost the toss which meant his bowlers gained first use of a pitch much drier and much less seamer friendly than the track in Kandy last week, Steve Smith might have been pleased to skittle Sri Lanka inside 72 overs for 281.

A score that had looked likely to balloon breezily past 300 after the pace Sri Lanka were making despite losing a couple of early wickets.

But Mitchell Starc’s fifth five-wicket haul – the best return by a visiting seamer at Galle and one that carried him beyond 100 wickets in his 27th Test – enabled Australia to wrest back some control until the loss of two wickets as the evening shadows stretched long.

Image Id: ~/media/F901DA8C3FC8451199BD16393FA2E6AA Image Caption: Starc salutes with the match ball // Getty

The most costly being David Warner’s dismissal from what turned out to be the day’s final delivery, edging an off-spinner to slip – a dismissal that Smith said prior to the Test he was prepared to cop after so many batters played inside the ball at Kandy – having free-wheeled his way to 42 from even fewer balls.

So Australia enter day two 227 runs behind with eight wickets intact, not vastly different to a week ago when they finished the first day 2-66 and barely 50 runs behind before the match changed irreparably on the second morning.

If today’s batting and bowling provided a guide, then lessons have been learned over the intervening seven days.

Image Id: ~/media/E0D61CB97B0A44FEAE7F04D4AF3DE9A2 Image Caption: Warner vents his frustration at his dismissal // Getty

And even allowing for the planning and practice that went into this Test after the sub-par performance at Kandy last week, the start the Australians made with the ball could not have been better scripted.

Starc’s opening ball that pitched full and swung invitingly into the pads of opener Dimuth Karunaratne who – having been touted as a potential casualty in the starting XI for this match given his return of 5 and 0 at Pallekele – excitedly flicked towards mid-wicket.

And straight into the hands of Joe Burns who could scarcely believe his luck.

Burns came to learn how easily such a soft dismissal can happen with brutal clarity when Australia began their innings late in the day, when he tried to muscle a half-tracker from left-arm seamer Vishwa Fernando who took the new ball for his country in his debut Test and was just two deliveries into his Test career.

Which was long enough to boast dream debut figures of 1-0 when Burns shovelled his attempted pull shot to the same fielding position that he had accepted the catch in the day’s other opening over.

In between those bizarre bookends, an absorbing day of Test cricket played out against one of the game’s more majestic and idyllic backdrops – the silent stoicism of the historic Galle fort stands in contrast to the heavy waves breaking near its base.

Starc’s early dual strike – Karunaratne’s dismissal followed two overs later by the more clinical removal of his opening partner Kausal Silva – saw the home team nervously headed down the same fraught path they had in Kandy a week earlier.

With their 2-9 in the fifth over looking even more precipitous than the 2-15 that ended up becoming 117 all out on the first day at Pallekele.

But from there, the series script changed as the day one fortunes surged and ebbed like the Laccadive Sea as it pummels Sri Lanka’s south coast.

Image Id: ~/media/15AC8E3E38204249A9C0930CA317BB11 Image Caption: Kusal Mendis swept with impunity // Getty

First Test match-winner Kusal Mendis appeared set to reprise his game-changing second innings from a week prior, as the Australian bowlers seemed as bereft of means to quell him as they had been throughout his stunning 176 at Pallekele Stadium.

Not only was he fearless in his strokeplay, he refused to play second fiddle to his captain Angelo Mathews who launched his own counter-attack as the game threatened – either side of lunch – to slip from Australia’s grasp.

But the call from coach Darren Lehmann for his bowlers to rally was heeded as they found reverse swing and regular wickets that became increasingly regular once the skipper and his apprentice were parted.

Mathews, whose influence on the first Test result was minimal aside from his steady leadership and the belief he instilled in his young charges, arrived at the crease shortly after lunch and made a loud and immediate statement.

By that stage Sri Lanka were 3-117 and despite rattling along at almost four runs per over, a fair achievement on day one of a Test against the world’s top-ranked bowling attack, needed to consolidate and not expose their lower-middle order under the game’s conventional thinking.

But that went out the window from the second delivery the skipper faced as he skipped out of his crease and bludgeoned Nathan Lyon beyond the boundary rope at long-on.

An ambitious shot had he been batting at the Galle city end and hitting with the assistance of the howling sou-westerly that whipped around the massive fort structure, but one of utter temerity if aiming to the windward side of the ground.

Any suggestion it was an instinctively nervous stroke from a captain beginning his innings at a crucial moment of a vital Test match were scotched in Lyon’s next over when Mathews unfurled a reverse sweep that landed halfway to the backward point fence.

And then another one in Lyon’s subsequent over that almost went to hand, a near miss that saw Mathews undaunted as he loaded up loaded up against Holland an over later and slogged him for six down the ground.

A shot that took the captain to 25 from as many balls faced and clearly looking to put the Test – and the series – beyond Australia’s reach by tea on the first day.

If ever the Australians’ pre-series preaching about their intent to attack the stumps, set defensive fields and dry up the opposition batters when their scoring rate became problematic required practical implementation, this was the moment.

But such is Mendis’s level of mastery in his familiar conditions, a talent that belies his standing as the Test match’s youngest participant, those stop-gap tactics forever seemed to spring a leak.

The ploy to attack Lyon and debutant spinner Holland at every opportunity was built on a classic two-punch strategy – Mathews hitting freely at anything flighted and then Mendis sweeping with impunity against anything fired into the pitch.

As the runs continued to flow – both spinners conceding them at a rate of more than four an over – Smith was compelled to turn to his new-ball pair Starc and Josh Hazlewood to try and apply the brakes as well as hunt the breakthroughs.

Hazlewood was certain he had achieved the crucial one and convinced umpire Chris Gaffney through the conviction of his appeal when Mendis played across an in-dipper on 78 – the first sure sign the reverse swing was happening – and was given out.

But the wise counsel of Mathews at the other end saw the clearly uncertain 21-year-old call for a video review which showed the ball reversing so far it was missing leg stump.

However, the frustration of that overrule was tempered by the sight of the old ball swinging which made batting a marginally less straightforward proposition.

A premise that proved correct when the seamers made a vital double strike.

Mendis was squared up by a full delivery that Starc got to slide across with the resultant edge carrying low to Nevill, and then Mathews aimed one hefty swipe too many at a ball from Mitch Marsh that failed to tail in and instead held its line to also take a thin edge.

The push into Sri Lanka’s inexperienced lower order was stalled when Adam Voges spilled a straightforward catch at slip when Dhananjaya de Silva was 17, the annoyance compounded when the beneficiary went on to more than double his score in a 35-run seventh-wicket stand with Dilruwan Perera.

An important contribution in light of the tailspin the Sri Lankans found themselves in following Mendis’s departure, from which point their final seven wickets fell for 97 in less than 28 overs.

It was the most glaring blunder of what was a largely tidy fielding effort from the Australians who saw numerous half-chances fall despairingly short and most full chances accepted.

That included a spectacular one-handed running catch by Lyon on the mid-wicket boundary, which should have resulted in Holland’s first Test wicket but instead proved to be an outstanding effort to prevent his fellow spinner from conceding his maiden Test six.

Holland’s memorabilia moment came several hours later, although as far as textbook spinner’s dismissals his initial Test breakthrough might be one that benefits from an embellished retelling rather than close scrutiny of the videotape.

He might then claim that the shin-high full toss that de Silva simply missed and from which he was pinned in front of middle stump drifted in with the arm, dipped late due to judicious overspin and was perhaps one of Test cricket’s more unplayable full tosses.

But he has a Test wicket and, on the strength of what the Galle pitch showed on day one of a scheduled five, there will be an opportunity for plenty more come Sri Lanka’s second innings.