Legends Month: Best of Sanath Jayasuriya

Upon a chance revisit to Sanath Jayasuriya's dismissal on the final day of Sri Lanka's 1997 home Test against India, it's not unreasonable to deduce he was the last recognised batter standing between the visitors and a hard-earned victory.

Fending an off-break from Rajesh Chauhan that bit and bounced on the day-five surface into the grasp of Sourav Ganguly at silly mid-off, Jayasuriya was a study of anguished frustration as he slapped his bat into the Premadasa turf, threw back his head and trudged wearily towards the exit.

The silence that gripped a ground just moments earlier heaving with buoyant expectation indicated a gallant cause was irretrievably lost.

And the procession of gracious India players who patted congratulations upon the departing figure's shoulders also suggested the magnanimity of imminent victors.

But as the 30,000-strong crowd that had crammed into Colombo's premier stadium, with the gates thrown open on this historic final day, found voice it becomes clear they are rising to honour greatness attained rather than opportunity missed.

Indeed, a majority of fans who had attended in the hope of witnessing Jayasuriya supplant West Indies great Brian Lara as holder of the highest individual score in Test cricket – at that stage 375 – left the ground when the Sri Lanka opener fell 35 runs shy and the game ground to its inevitable stalemate.

However, the personal triumph that was Jayasuriya's transcended the outcome, as much for the fact his 13 hour and 19 minutes innings over three enervating days was as out of sync with the brutality he brazenly showed in limited-overs colours as it was relentlessly and flawlessly dominant.

The then 28-year-old had previously helped rewrite the ODI playbook by flaying opposition bowlers from the first over in concert with his equally fearless opening partner Romesh Kaluwitharana, a ploy that had underpinned Sri Lanka’s remarkable 1996 World Cup victory.

Though a blazing counter-attack was hardly what his nation needed in the opening Test of their two-match home campaign against arch-foes and near neighbours India, against whom they had never won a Test and had surrendered the preceding four series stretching back more than a decade.

After India batted to within a few overs of stumps on day two and amassed 8(dec)-537, the hosts lost opener Marvan Atapattu at evening's end and Jayasuriya set his focus on the distant follow-on target of 337 that remained at least a day's batting away.

Having pledged that his bowlers would "attack for three days" with his team holding the whip hand, India captain Sachin Tendulkar then watched helplessly as days three and four unfolded without so much as a hint of a second breakthrough.

Over that time, Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama became the only pair to bat two full days of Test cricket without a wicket falling or a batter retiring.

Technically, it has happened before (the West Indies' Frank Worrell and Gary Sobers against England in 1959-60) and since (South Africa pair Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis in New Zealand in 1998-99, and India's Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid against Pakistan in 2005-06).

But all of those occurrences included time lost to poor weather, whereas Jayasuriya and Mahanama simply weathered the bowling that an increasingly flagging India attack served up.

Come stumps on day three, Jayasuriya had led Sri Lanka within 15 runs of the follow-on mark and scored 175 of his own along the way, but it wasn't until late the following day that the powerful left hander clubbed the first six of his extraordinary innings.

By that stage, he loomed as Sri Lanka's maiden Test triple-century maker and then, having refreshed overnight on 325 he resumed with Mahanama (not out 211) on the game's final morning and took with him to the wicket the dreams of a nation as Lara's benchmark glittered just 50 runs in the distance.

Mahanama's dismissal not long after the resumption provided expectant statisticians with a handy warm-up.

The teammates at Colombo's Bloomfield Cricket Club had defied India for 753 minutes, making theirs the longest Test partnership (in time) and third-highest in deliveries negotiated (1110).

Their union of 576 runs stood as the highest for any wicket in Tests until another Sri Lanka duo – Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene - plundered 624 against South Africa almost a decade later.

And when Mahanama departed with Sri Lanka 2-615, the locals were already celebrating their team’s highest total in 15 years as a Test nation.

A few more deft boundaries and Jayasuriya, with World Cup hero Aravinda de Silva now comfortably ensconced at the other end, appeared likely to not only overhaul Lara’s marker planted four years earlier but – with almost a day's play beckoning – push it out to a point it would never again be challenged.

That's when it ended in the most innocuous manner, a tame catch spooned from high on the bat, a prolonged hush of disbelief and then a Test match left to drift to its unremarkable conclusion.

"I was happy to go all that way," Jayasuriya said when time was finally called, with Sri Lanka holding a new high Test total that remains unsurpassed (6-952) and their star opener beaming but exhausted after his 340.

"I wasn't going after the record (of Lara) - at least not until the end of the fourth day, when someone told me I was only 50 short.

"I felt a great pressure on me when I came out to bat (on the final day) and obviously I am disappointed now, but at least my country has made a great achievement."

As for Tendulkar, he had signalled his views late in day five when he called up Dravid for his first bowling spell in Test cricket and noted at game's end that the Premadasa pitch was "unfit for Test cricket".

"If we had lost the toss and batted second, we could also have played a massive innings," said the India captain, who batted almost seven hours to score 139 in the following Test, which also ended in a bat-dominated draw where Jayasuriya scored 199.

"We only lost wickets because we took chances and looked for runs."