Meanwhile, Australia captain Steve Smith today received the ICC Test Championship mace and Dollars 1 million in prize money for leading his side to the number one ranking on the MRF Tyres ICC Test Team Rankings on the annual April 1 cut-off date.
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“The second is that a certain training session for the Australia players at Pallekele had been carried out without permission”.
Australia’s last outing to the sub-continent saw them lose all four Tests against India in 2013 and they also lost both matches when Pakistan hosted them for a two-Test series in 2014 in the Gulf.
Even though he only bowled three overs, Nathan Lyon took three Sri Lankan wickets to vindicate Smith’s decision to pick both him and O’Keefe – who picked up two scalps in only his third Test. It goes without saying the retired Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene have left giant holes in Sri Lanka’s team.
Sri Lanka have only just returned home from a disastrous tour of England where they failed to win any of their nine Tests and limited overs internationals.
Sri Lanka cut their deficit to 80 before rain stopped play with a session to spare, but the showers did not arrive quickly enough for Perera, who was lbw to Starc (1-3) with what turned out to be the last ball of the day.
Silva was the fourth-leading scorer in the recent 2-0 Test series defeat in England.
Smith echoed coach Darren Lehmann’s analysis when he said O’Keefe was “quite similar” to Sri Lanka’s wily match-winning threat, Rangana Herath.
Paceman Nuwan Pradeep, who had dismissed Australia opener David Warner for a duck on Tuesday, claimed the crucial wicket of Voges.
“He rode roughshod over the grounds men and got Australian players to practise in violation of the time stipulations”, Sumathipala said.
“We don’t know too much about these guys, we haven’t played them a lot, especially our bowlers, so we’ve worked out a few little things here and there in that innings, and we’ll look to keep on top of them with those plans throughout the whole series”.
“While playing against the Aussies we should be fearless and play positively, and if we do that we can beat them”.
Australia’s Joe Burns looks around the corner after getting one past Sri Lankan keeper Dinesh Chandimal. “He gets himself in a little bit of trouble, as we’ve seen in one-day cricket, when he sort of just noodles them around”. He needs five wickets to become the only Australian finger spinner in nearly 140 years of Test cricket to reach 200 Test wickets.
“These are exciting times for Test cricket as the top four ranked countries are involved in high profile series across three different continents showcasing the very best this format of the sport has to offer”.
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“You have got to be prepared to get your runs in one and twos”.
