Australia retain just a glimmer of hope after a second consecutive poor day left them well behind in the first Test in Sri Lanka.
The tourists used some utterly confounding tactics with the ball against Sri Lanka’s tail before their top order again was found out by some fine spin bowling.
Bad light ended play with Australia 3-83, still 185 runs shy of recording an unlikely victory. They do, however, have two men at the crease who have achieved some remarkable feats in Test cricket in recent times.
Captain Steve Smith and number five Adam Voges, who averages 93 after 16 Tests, are capable of dragging Australia back into this match. But the Sri Lankan bowling has been of a consistently high quality, and the wearing Kandy pitch is exactly the kind of deck on which Australia consistently have failed for many years now.
Time and again when Australia’s batting struggles on the subcontinent are analysed there is an excessive focus on the sharp turn offered by many Asian pitches. Yet it has been the natural variation of bounce and spin which most often have undone the Australians in recent years.
When they were humiliated by Pakistan in the UAE in 2014 neither of the pitches used offered exorbitant turn. In fact, left arm finger spinner Zulfiqar Babar did not often get appreciable sideways movement in those two Tests yet still hoarded 14 wickets.
Many times, Australia’s batsmen were dismissed by deliveries which acted in an unexpected way, not because of deception by the bowler but because of the idiosyncrasies of the surfaces. They were bowled, trapped LBW or caught in close by deliveries which variously kept low, kicked up, or skidded on straight when the heavy revolutions on the ball suggested they should turn.
Such natural variation is very rare in Australia conditions and so is largely alien to their batsmen. This variation is also why so many of the best Asian players of spin regularly try to get to the pitch of the ball so as not to allow the deck to play any tricks.
To their credit, the Australia batsmen did attempt to take the pitch out of the equation more often yesterday by skipping down the track or sweeping. Displaying nimble footwork, opener Joe Burns looked far better than he had in the first innings, when he was rooted to the crease.
He was castled by a phenomenal delivery by exciting young Chinaman Lakshan Sandakan, who got the ball to turn in wildly from way outside Burns’ off stump. First drop Usman Khawaja played one delightful lofted drive on the charge before exiting in ugly fashion with a pre-meditated slog sweep.
David Warner tried to use his feet as he had to good effect against the Pakistan tweakers in 2014, finishing as Australia’s highest run scorer with 239 runs at 60 in that series.
Yesterday he had the misfortune to cop a delivery from Rangana Herath which practically rolled along the ground. Warner made it to the pitch of this loopy offering and looked to drive the ball through mid on. But after pitching the ball stayed remarkably low, skidding under Warner’s blade and bowling him.
The HawkEye ball tracking technology showed that, quite incredibly, that delivery bounced at just one-quarter of the height of the previous Herath delivery which had landed on the same length. It bounced 33cm lower than that previous delivery, dribbling into the base of the stumps.
This is the challenge of batting fourth in Asia. It’s why you cannot afford to be chasing totals the size of 268. Australia had themselves to blame for allowing the Sri Lankan tail to expand the lead yesterday.
They had a great start to the day, dismissing centurion Kusal Mendis within the first 10 minutes of play. Mitchell Starc had Mendis caught behind for 176, ending one of the most sublime knocks by a young Test batsman of the past decade.
Sri Lanka do not have a strong tail, with number eight Dilruwan Perera averaging just 10 with the bat from his 10 Tests and Nuwan Pradeep and Sandakan both genuine number 11s. The situation demanded a simple game plan.
Australia’s quicks needed to aim only at three things – the base of the stumps, the top of off stump or the batsmen’s helmets. Instead they served up a buffet of unchallenging deliveries between waist and chest high. This is the perfect length for tail enders to slash at and runs flowed from their edges behind square on the off side.
It became farcical as the last pair put on 30 crucial runs. Quite incredibly, of the 29 deliveries Australia sent down during this partnership, only one would have hit the stumps, according to HawkEye.
And this wasn’t only the fault of the bowlers, as the field was set for short pitched bowling, with men back on the hook shot, plus two catching men in close on the leg side. Given Starc owns the best yorker in world cricket, these tactics were shocking and perplexing.
But criticism of the Australians should not take away from a fine fightback by Sri Lanka. After being rolled for 117 on the first day they could have surrendered meekly. Instead they are on the brink of beating Australia for just the second time in history and the first time in 17 years.
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