Galle's so-far unseen enemy set to bare its teeth

Rather like Steven Spielberg's 1975 cautionary tale against ocean swimming 'Jaws', in which the eponymous angry fish doesn't appear on screen until 80 minutes into the movie, the threat posed by Galle's 'pitch of death' remains perceived.

And while Sri Lanka's batters didn't quite make like happy July 4 holidaymakers on Amity Island, their day one total of 9-229 represented a better-than-expected or worse-than-hoped result depending on who's perspective one holds.

For an Australia team that had handed Sri Lanka their most horrific Test loss in the preceding first Test last week, the 90 overs they were forced to send down on a surface drier than Police Chief 'you're gonna need a bigger boat' Martin Brody left them "pretty content".

Despite the gruesome ending they suffered not six days earlier, Sri Lanka were contrastingly disappointed they had not scored more and for the loss of fewer wickets against a revamped rival attack boasting just three specialist bowlers.

But where both teams find commonality is in the interpretation of the Galle pitch which they uniformly believe will transform into a monster over the next day or so, at which point the action will start to unfold at edge-of-the-seat pace.

That's because – as with 'Bruce', nickname of the latex covered, robotics stuffed fake fish that sent a generation of sunworshippers scurrying for the safety of the nearest swimming pool – there's a realisation it will inevitably bare its teeth.

The menace is surely there, it just remains unseen … for now.

"I think the dryness was a starting point," Australia assistant coach Daniel Vettori said after day one when noting differences between the first Test pitch on which his team piled on 6(dec)-654 last week, and the current remake.

"The first Test (pitch) had a little tacky dampness which held it together a little bit longer than we anticipated.

"This one was full of cracks, loose and as dry as you'll see.

"We thought that it would start to break up, which it has.

"If you go and have a look at the surface now, the footmarks have really come to the fore and it will get dustier and dustier.

"So the anticipation was it will turn big, and it did turn but it probably wasn't as consistent as we thought and there was probably a bit more low bounce than we anticipated as well.

"That's why we thought runs would be a premium and we're going to have to match whatever Sri Lanka do in this first innings and a little bit more, because batting is going to become more and more difficult."

From where Sri Lanka's former limited-overs batter-turned-assistant coach Thilina Kandamby sat yesterday, his players missed a priceless opportunity to blow Australia out of the water.

Having gone to lunch 1-87 and with a significant platform on which to build, Kandamby believes Sri Lanka's batters became bogged down in trying to protect their skins rather than hunt Australia's bowlers to set up a total that might determine the outcome.

In the hour after lunch the hosts scored just 30 runs from 15 overs for the loss of experienced hands Dimuth Karunaratne (36) and Angelo Mathews (1).

They became even more becalmed over the subsequent 60 minutes as the opposing spin of Nathan Lyon and Matthew Kuhnemann, along with an inspired spell by Mitchell Starc (5-3-2-1), saw them crawl to a further 27 runs from 78 balls.

That hour also brought two more casualties, with their top-ranked batter Kamindu Mendis perishing for 13 and skipper Dhananjaya de Silva an inglorious first-ball duck.

"This is not the total we wanted," Kandamby said at day's end.

"We had a good start but then the afternoon session was poor.

"A few good knocks form Chandi (Dinesh Chandimal, 74) and Menda (Kusal Mendis, 59no) but it's not what we wanted at the end of the day.

"In the afternoon session our approach was too negative.

"There were too many dot balls and not much rotation of strike.

"The other day we swept well, although we lost a few wickets. Today we didn't do that.

"Initially we were targeting 350."

Realising that ambition from their current position will require a plot twist even Spielberg would consider too fantastic.

But regardless of where Sri Lanka wash up, they will have posted a score Australia must not only match but cruise significantly past given the perils that will almost certainly come with batting last on the malevolent Galle strip.

The fact the pitch didn't start to break apart as early or as quickly as the Australia camp expected will provide them with hope they can claim the final Sri Lanka batter upon the resumption today, with a ball just nine overs old.

However, should the last wicket prove as tricky to bag as a rogue white pointer (even one powered by animatronics) and the hosts push their way past 250, then Australia's hopes of landing just their second series win in Asia since 2011 might begin to sink.

"I just think it's going to be a tricky wicket all the way along," Vettori said.

"Obviously (Sri Lanka off-spinner Ramesh) Mendis has a lot of experience bowling here, and (left-arm spinner Prabath) Jayasuriya so they've got the capabilities to come really hard at us with their bowling group.

"Dhananjaya (who didn't bowl in the first Test due to injury) looked like he was bowling this morning as well, so that's a really well-rounded group of spinners who know these conditions as well.

"We anticipate it's going to be difficult the whole way through."

If Australia seek further solace from a solid day one of toil on which they might not have created as many opportunities as they thought the surface would generate, but nonetheless kept Sri Lanka to a thus-far manageable score, they see it in recent history.

Like any movie epic worth its sea salt, a raft of sequels follows and Vettori noted a potentially eerie similarity between the current fixture and the first Test of Australia's previous tour to Sri Lanka in 2022, also staged in Galle.

On a dry, spinning pitch bearing many coincidental characteristics to this deck, Australia restricted the home team to a first innings score of 212 on the back of Lyon's five wickets, before their batters (led by Usman Khawaja and Cameron Green) replied with 321.

As the pitch turned nasty and the game gathered speed, Sri Lanka were knocked over for 113 in just 22.5 overs on day three with Travis Head an unlikely hero with 4-10 from 17 deliveries as Australia won by 10 wickets.

Sequels might recycle the same plot but invariably make small changes to the cast, and Green is not part of the 2025 ensemble having undergone back surgery prior to the Australian summer.

But the other characters remain, and accept they're not facing altogether uncharted waters which might instil a sense of calm amid the gathering anxiety of what lurks.

"It's probably got a similar path to the first Test when we were here last time," Vettori said.

"It feels like that sort of wicket.

"Not saying it's going to play out like that again, but first innings runs are going to play a huge role in whoever wins this game."

Or in simple scriptwriter terms, you're gonna need a bigger total.

Qantas Tour of Sri Lanka

First Test: Australia win by an innings and 242 runs

Second Test: February 6-10, Galle (3.30pm AEDT)

Sri Lanka Test squad: Dhananjaya de Silva (c), Dimuth Karunaratne, Pathum Nissanka (subject to fitness), Oshada Fernando, Lahiru Udara, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Kamindu Mendis, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Sonal Dinusha, Prabath Jayasuriya, Jeffrey Vandersay, Nishan Peiris, Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando, Lahiru Kumara, Milan Rathnayake

Australia Test squad: Steve Smith (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Travis Head (vc), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Nathan McSweeney, Todd Murphy, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

First ODI: February 12, Colombo (3.30pm AEDT)

Second ODI: February 14, Colombo (3.30pm AEDT)