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| Saturday, 20 March 2004 |
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Jayasuriya century gives Lanka hope of victory by Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from Kandy The second cricket Test between Sri Lanka and Australia stood on its head at the end of an absorbing fourth day at the Asgiriya International Stadium here today. Chasing 352 - the sixth highest total in history to win a Test match, Sri Lanka finished the penultimate day on 301 for seven wickets. They require a further 51 runs with three wickets in hand on the fifth and final day tomorrow to beat Australia and level the three-Test series 1-all with one to play. Australia won the first Test at Galle by 245 runs and Sri Lanka are within touching distance of squaring the series and recording only their second win over Australia in 15 Tests. Australia were dismissed in their second innings for 442 shortly before lunch and Sri Lanka began their pursuit an over before lunch. The fourth day's play produced a remarkable 423 runs for the loss 12 wickets off 99 overs. Once again the onus is on the tail to produce the required runs for a Sri Lankan victory. It was the tailenders who boosted the first innings too contributing 123 runs for the last three wickets which enabled Sri Lanka to gain a first innings lead of 91. At the wickets are first innings top scorer Chaminda Vaas on 30 and Kaushal Lokuarachchi on 13. The pair has so far added 27 runs for the eighth wicket. Vaas made an unbeaten 68 in the first innings. The task would not have been made any easier had it not been for Sanath Jayasuriya. The former captain blazed away to his 11th Test century, which has set up this improbable win for Sri Lanka tomorrow. The master blaster was very much short of runs with only 41 runs in three innings in the series before today. He couldn't have picked on a better occasion to blast the Australian bowlers to all parts of the Asgiriya ground. Jayasuriya made maximum use of a let off at 25 by Martyn at third slip off Kasprowicz to put the Australian bowling to the sword. He raced to his half-century off 55 balls (8 fours) and then brought his century up in style by sweeping MacGill to the mid wicket boundary for his 15th four. He also slammed a six over extra cover off Kasprowicz to boot. MacGill suffered the most from Jayasuriya's broad bat being hit for 11 fours and one six. The leg spinner went for 65 runs in his first spell of 11 overs including 16 off one over. It was pure vintage Jayasuriya. It was the kind of batting that only he is capable of and something, which he had not been able to produce for the past 20 months. The last occasion he scored a hundred was against Bangladesh at the Saravanamuttu Stadium in July 2002 when he made 145. The manner in which Jayasuriya was treating the Australian bowlers it seemed that he was in a hurry to finish the match off today. Such was his dominance that for the first time in the series Australian captain Ricky Ponting was forced to go on the defensive. Jayasuriya is the man every country fears because with his bludgeoning blade he is capable of changing the course of a game. He almost did it single-handedly today taking Sri Lanka to 218 before he tried to steer Gillespie to third man and only succeeded in giving a catch to Gilchrist. Jayasuriya's innings of 131 lasted 204 minutes and he faced 145 balls hitting 17 fours and two sixes. Despite Jayasuriya's solo effort, the rest of the top order batsmen failed to contribute with the exception of Tillakaratne Dilshan who overcame a painful hit on the groin from a Kasprowicz delivery to score a courageous 43 off 62 balls (6 fours) before be misread a Warne leg-break and was bowled through the gate. Australia's second innings dragged on for nearly the entire morning session with Damien Martyn moving on to make a career best score of 161. He was the last man out after batting a marathon 536 minutes. He faced 347 balls and hit 21 fours and a six and had the fortune of being missed on three occasions by Jayawardene at slip off the luckless Zoysa. Even today Martyn who resumed on 104 was let off at 112 when Jayawardene from second slip pounced on the catch, which was going straight to Tillakaratne at first slip. The batsman made use of this lapse to add a further 49 runs to his personal tally before he finally stepped out to the persevering Muralitharan and was easily stumped. His previous best Test score was 133 against South Africa at Johannesburg in 2001-02. As long s Martyn was around Australia's innings prospered. Resuming at 320 for five the last five wickets added 122 runs in almost a session's play. Muralitharan who started the day with figures of one for 126, picked up four today for 47 runs to end with his 42nd five-wicket innings haul. Vaas and Zoysa took the remaining five between them. Free entry today Sri Lanka Cricket announced today that the final day's play tomorrow would be free of charge to the public. AUSTRALIA 1ST INNINGS 120 SRI LANKA 1ST INNINGS 211 AUSTRALIA 2ND INNINGS (overnight 320-5) J.L. Langer c Sangakkara b Zoysa 9 M.L. Hayden c and b Vaas 5 A.C. Gilchrist lbw b Muralitharan 144 D.R. Martyn st Sangakkara b Muralitharan 161 D.S. Lehmann lbw b Vaas 21 R.T. Ponting c Sangakkara b Vaas 27 A. Symonds lbw b Muralitharan 23 S.K. Warne c Zoysa b Muralitharan 6 J.N. Gillespie c Atapattu b Muraliltharan 11 M.S. Kasprowicz c Jayawardene b Zoysa 8 S.E.G. MacGill not out 17 EXTRAS (b-2, lb-7, nb-1) 10 TOTAL (all out, 134.3 overs, 579 mins) 442 Fall of wickets: 1-11 (Hayden), 2-26 (Langer), 3-226 (Gilchrist), 4-255 (Lehmann), 5-304 (Ponting), 6-360 (Symonds), 7-376 (Warne), 8-393 (Gillespie), 9-408 (Kasprowicz), 10-442 (Martyn). Bowling:Vaas 33-6-193-3 (1nb), Muralitharan 50.3-8-173-5, Zoysa 33-11-102-2, Lokuarachchi 12-2-33-0, Jayasuriya 5-0-16-0, Dilshan 1-0-6-0. SRI LANKA 2ND INNINGS M.S.Atapattu lbw b Gillespie 8 S.T. Jayasuriya c Gilchrist b Gillespie 131 D.A.Gunawardene lbw b Kasprowicz 9 K.C. Sangakkara c and b Warne 29 D.P.M. Jayawardene c Gilchrist b Gillespie 13 T.M. Dilshan b Warne 43 H.P. Tillakaratne c Ponting b Warne 7 W.P.U.J.C. Vaas not out 30 K.S. Lokuarachchi not out 13 EXTRAS (b-4, lb-13, nb-1) 18 TOTAL (7 wkts at close, 67 overs, 298 mins) 301 Fall of wickets: 1-17 (Atapattu), 2-36 (Gunawardene), 3-98 (Sangakkara), 4-174 (Jayawardene), 5-218 (Jayasuriya), 6-239 (Tillakaratne), 7-274 (Dilshan). Bowling:Kasprowicz 17-1-55-1, Gillespie 17-1-61-3, Warne 18-1-83-3, Symonds 3-0-16-0, MacGill 12-0-69-0 (1nb).
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