Golden Silva ton powers Sri Lanka

Australia must defy history and all logic on the final day of their failed campaign against Sri Lanka if they are to avoid their first Test series whitewash since ... well, since their previous two tours to Asia.

Holding an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series and refusing to let up on their better-credentialled, better-resourced rivals, Sri Lanka enters the series' ultimate day with a lead of 288 runs, a couple of batters left and a dustbowl on which to bowl out Australia tomorrow.

Given that the only Australian team to successfully chase a fourth-innings target beyond 200 was Ricky Ponting's star-studded 2006 line-up against a toothless Bangladesh in Dhaka, that task would seem unlikely in the most normal circumstances.

And noting that Australia has yet to reach 200 in its two previous fourth innings of this series that pitted a refreshed and ready world number one team against a seventh-ranked rival wracked by injuries, defeats and public criticism, this has been as far from normal as Asia is from Australia.

Image Id: ~/media/9805E8F4499F4DF48BE879337BD0C441 Image Caption: Captain Steve Smith after another tough day for the tourists // Getty

Which remains as foreign to Australia's cricketers as it was in 2014 when they were belted in both Tests by Pakistan in the UAE, a humiliation that in turn followed the seismic subcontinental 4-0 whitewash at the hands of India a year earlier.

Sri Lanka's extraordinary capacity to find a player willing and able to stand tall (figuratively) and alter the course of each Test today produced yet another unlikely headline after the Australian bowlers did what they've done consistently over the past three weeks.

Fire out a bulk of the local batsmen only to find frustration awaiting them for hours on end, this time in the miniscule form of sorely out-of-form and even more painfully wounded opener Kaushal Silva.

Sri Lanka’s first five wickets had been accounted for through diligent and disciplined and – for one of the few times in the series from the tourists' perspective – a flash of opportunism that yielded a wicket where none was on offer.

But then, as the ball softened faster than an iced lolly in the baking heat and reports of an 'exploding' fourth day pitch were revealed to be a hoax call, the home team's bottom half dug in.

Apart from the Australian batters’ glaring inability to handle the spinning ball and their rival top-order’s similar helplessness against the new one, the disparate contributions of the lower orders has provided one of the series most telling points of difference.

Heading into the back half of this third and final Test, Australia's last five wickets have averaged a team total of 57.4 runs across five completed innings.

Perhaps in part because their bowlers have been forced – after a dominant opening day of the campaign at Pallekele – to toil long and hard for breakthroughs and therefore have found it tough to find sufficient energy to swing a bat.

By contrast, Sri Lanka’s last five have added (on average) an additional 150 runs per innings which is not grossly different to the average total that all 10 of Australia’s wickets were able to average across the first two Tests (163).

Matches that Sri Lanka has won by 106 runs and 229 runs respectively, with the lower-order rallying today to transform 5-146 halfway through the day into 8-312 by evening’s end.

And as has been the case with remarkable regularity in this increasingly unforeseen series of Tests, today’s stumbling block was one the Australians would have likely felt posed a problem in direct proportion to his height.

Not only had diminutive opener Silva posed few problems for the Australian bowlers prior to today (18 runs from five innings with a highest score of seven alternating between number one and three in the order) he was not expected to appear at all when Sri Lanka lost the first wicket of their second innings late on day three.

As the Sri Lankan team media manager announced to the press gallery just moments before the compact right-hander emerged from the tunnel to lock horns with a marauding Mitchell Starc, Silva had received six stitches in his left hand as a result of a fielding mishap earlier in the day.

In which he sustained split webbing between his ring and little fingers and his availability to take further part in the Test would be assessed come the start of day four.

Which drew howls of laughter from the local press corps as Silva made his way through the evening shadows, and not much greater consternation from the Australians awaiting him in the middle given his inauspicious contributions with the bat to date.

But the 30-year-old survived a testing 21 minutes prior to stumps on day three and, despite the injury that he suffered when diving to stop a firm on-drive by Steve Smith while fielding at short mid-wicket, he remained unmoved as wickets fell around him this morning.

Image Id: ~/media/913FFF9FF61942478C4381B50BCA75E7 Image Caption: Having posted 18 runs in five innings, Silva broke through in style // Getty

The first of those was Dimuth Karunaratne, Silva’s equally unproductive opening partner throughout most of this series who had finally found a way not to surrender his wicket in Starc’s opening spell only to fall in unusual circumstances to Nathan Lyon.

Having stepped well back in his crease to safely negotiate an off-spinner that spun past the left-hander’s outside edge, the batsman then lent forward to rehearse his defensive prod and – in doing so – momentarily lifted his back foot from the ground with his right one planted outside the crease.

With ball in glove and eyes sharply fixed on the batter’s hooves, wicketkeeper Peter Nevill deftly flicked off a bail and to the surprise to all but the vigilant Australia 'keeper, television replays confirmed Karunaratne had no part of his person grounded behind the line.

Having been subjected to the same scrutiny as pretty much every bowler who takes a wicket in international cricket these days - a lengthy analysis from the third umpire.

When Kusal Perera (who, like Silva adds value to the XI as an auxiliary wicketkeeper) was adjudged out on review gloving a reverse sweep to slip, and Kusal Mendis was pinned in front of leg stump by Starc, Sri Lanka’s lead was just 74.

Silva was then joined by his skipper Angelo Mathews, who had publicly backed the struggling batsman against calls to be replaced in the starting XI on Test eve, and who then shepherded him to a patient half-century chiselled from three hours of batting.

Mathews' departure for 26 midway through the day left Silva in the company of vice-captain Dinesh Chandimal, who himself had conducted a master class in patient, atttritional batting across the first two days and clearly revelled at the willingness of others to follow his template.

The embrace the pair shared when Silva reached his hundred, courtesy of a friendly full-toss on off-stump from occasional spinner Adam Voges, was only surpassed in warmth and spontaneous joy by the animated bat waving Silva directed at the Sri Lanka dressing room.

Where a beaming Mathews stood on the balcony offering prolonged applause.

For a captain, there are few greater rewards than going into bat for a struggling teammate who then does likewise for his skipper.

For Silva, it provided a golden glow to a series that will live long in Sri Lankan cricket folklore, one that he can belatedly claim a meaningful part.