Indian left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha scalped two quick wickets but Thilan Samaraweera’s patient hundred guided Sri Lanka to a comfortable 369 for six in their first innings at lunch on the second day of the third and final cricket Test here on Wednesday.
At the break, Samaraweera (104) and Suraj Randiv (2) were holding fort for the Lankans.
Samaraweera’s century came off 229 balls and comprised 10 boundaries. All-rounder Angelo Mathews also chipped in with 45 runs, which included six fours, down the order to help build a reasonably formidable total for the hosts on a wicket that has not been too easy to negotiate.
For the Indians, although Ishant Sharma and Abhimanyu Mithun extracted a bit of bounce from the pitch early on, they could not provide any breakthrough.
And once Samaraweera and Mathews settled down, it became rather easy for them to score off the Indian pace combination, forcing visiting skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni to introduce the spinners.
After toiling hard for most of the session, Ojha provided the much-needed breakthrough for the visitors when he trapped Mathews leg-before 45.
Mathews played for the turn which wasn’t there and got trapped. Ojha, who picked up two of the four wickets that fell on Tuesday, then dismissed Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene (9) in a similar fashion.
The Sri Lankan was trapped while attempting a sweep. The action replays showed the ball would have hit the middle stump.