Sri Lanka, at the end of day 2, led by 43 runs with 8 wickets in hand as Pathum Nissanka remained unbeaten on 146, however, the presence of night watchman Prabath Jayasuriya batting on 5 overnight coupled with the new ball due in just 2 more overs for Bangladesh envisaged an exciting day 3 at the SSC.
Bangladesh dominated the first session after scalping 4 wickets for an addition of 111 runs by dismissing Pathum Nissanka for 158, Dhananjaya de Silva for 13 , Kamindu Mendis including night watchman Prabath Jayasuriya
Sri Lanka took lunch on 401 for 6 wickets, but they lost too many wickets and guess the prerequisite was to bat Bangladesh out of the game by getting to a first innings target of 600 runs.
Bangladesh spin cordon led by Taijul Islam and Nayeen Hasan together with Mehidy Hasan controlled the run flow to a great extent after Kusal Mendis and Kamindu Mendis scored freely, but Kamindu, was bowled for 33 in stemming the Sri Lankan run flow to a great extent before the lunch break.
Kusal Mendis had a positive mindset. He thumped 84 runs in 87 deliveries with 8 boundaries and 2 maximums despite wickets falling around him.
Sadly, he was run out whilst trying to retain strike batting with the tail. His exquisite stroke play was a breath of fresh air.
Sri Lanka was ultimately bowled out for 458, with a lead of 211 runs.
Taijul Islam 4 wickets for 121 runs and Nayeem Hassan 4 wickets for 87, doing the damage from a Bangladesh perspective.
Bangladesh ended day 3 on a very low ebb losing 6 wickets for 115 runs, and the deficit of 96 runs with only 4 wickets in hand clearly indicates that Bangladesh will have their work cut out to save this test.
The only recognised batter out in the middle is Litton Das whilst the tail enders are the only players left in the batting bank of the tigers,
Bangladesh lost 5 top order batters in the final session with Mehidy Hasan losing his wicket in the last over of the day.
It was encouraging to see Prabath Jayasuriya scalp 2 wickets in the second innings having gone wicket-less in the first innings and not at his best in Galle during the first test.