Sri Lanka Skipper Dimuth Karunaratne made a patient, unbeaten 85 as Sri Lanka finished day 3 on 229/3, still 312 runs behind Bangladesh’s 1st innings total of 541.
Karunaratne curbed the urge to play away from his body early in his innings, one of his downfalls of late, looking to go straighter and it paid off. The left hander had a slow start in comparison to his opening partner Lahiru Thirimanne, but soon cashed in on the loose deliveries on offer to move close to his 11th Test ton. The innings was characteristic of Karunaratne, as he held the innings together while wickets fell at the other end. He was given out lbw in the dying minutes of the day, only to be reprieved on review.
Thirimanne looked as fluent as ever on the way to his 4th fifty in 5 innings but will be disappointed that he fell short of a century once again. The left-hander has been in fine form in 2021 and has currently scored 517 runs at an average of 47 since the beginning of the year. Together with Karunaratne, Thirimanne gave Sri Lanka the start they needed as the pair survived a nervy 8-over spell before lunch and then kicked on to put on 114 for the 1st wicket.
The Bangladeshi bowlers seemed to be able to bring back some life into the surface, which had looked as flat as ever while the Tigers batted. The spinners in particular gave the Sri Lankan batmen a few scares, getting the ball to turn off a good length.
Mehidy Hassan trapped Thirimanne lbw before Taijul Islam set up Sri Lanka’s most experienced batter Angelo Mathews perfectly to show Sri Lanka what they had been lacking in the spin department as the pitch dried out.
Karunaratne and Dhananjaya de Silva saw Sri Lanka through to the end of the day’s play despite a few hiccups and will hope to build a big partnership to keep the hosts in the game.
Earlier in the day, Bangladesh showed much better intent to get things going, with overnight batsmen Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim looking to get some boundaries with a declaration imminent. Both went to half centuries before Das was dismissed by Vishwa Fernando with the 3rd new ball.
Fernando managed to snag the wicket of Taijul Islam, while Suranga Lakmal bagged the wicket of Mehidy Hassan (after 2 plays and misses), but Rahim stood tall, unbeaten on 68 when the declaration finally came from the Bangladeshi camp.
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