Starc exposure of Sri Lanka's openers

With much of the talk throughout a one-sided Test series centred upon the struggles of Australia's batsmen against spin, Sri Lanka's openers have quietly lurched into the record books courtesy of their own problem.

Primarily, a Mitchell Starc problem.

Only twice in Test history has a team's openers consistently gotten their side off to worse starts in a series than Dimuth Karunaratne, Kaushal Silva, Dilruwan Perera and Kusal Perera have managed across these three Tests against Australia (minimum six innings).

In total, they've managed a combined 27 runs in six opening partnerships.

Only Pakistan in 1990, with 20 runs in six opening stands, and Sri Lanka against England in 2006, with 23 runs from opening partnerships, have made fewer from six or more first-wicket unions in a series in Test history.

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That Pakistani side, which used four openers through the three Tests (Saeed Anwar, Ramiz Raja, Shoaib Mohammad and Aamer Malik) were also at home but had to contend with fearsome Windies pace quartet Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop through three Tests, with their six partnerships reading: 2, 15, 1, 0, 2, 0.

The Sri Lanka side that toured England in '06 used three openers – Upul Tharanga, Jehan Mubarak and Michael Vandort – and despite a century from Vandort in the second Test, they combined for just 23 at the top of the order across six trips to the middle, made up of: 0, 10, 3, 2, 2, 6.

In the current series, the openers combined for a pair of six-run stands in the first Test in Kandy, with the hosts owing their quite incredible victory to the lone hand of 176 by Kusal Mendis in their second innings.

Second time around, in Galle, Karunaratne went from the first ball of the match, while Silva was out from the final ball of Josh Hazlewood's first over in the second innings, with the openers added just five in partnership for the match.

And in Colombo, the trend continued; Silva was out for a 15-ball duck in the first innings as the opening stand this time registered two, before eight more were added at the second attempt until Starc intervened late on day three.

The pair of Silva and Karunaratne has been at fault through four of the six innings in this series, with the Pereras stepping up in the second innings of the first (Kusal) and third (Dilruwan) Tests.

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On day four in Colombo, Karunaratne became the first Sri Lankan opener to post double figures through the series from 12 attempts, making 22 before he was cleverly stumped by Peter Nevill. 

Starc has been the chief destroyer, breaking the opening stand five times as the left-armer has made the most of a new ball in conditions otherwise unfavourable for the quicks.

In all, eight of Starc's 24 wickets at the time of writing have been opening batsmen through what's been a phenomenal series for the left-arm spearhead.

"We spoke a lot before the series about how important the new ball would be for us," Starc said in Galle during the second Test.

"I think we've done that really well … we've taken early wickets."