No turn yet as bowlers pass tough day in Galle

The Galle wicket remained batting-friendly for the third successive day and the Sri Lankan batters made the most of it against a toothless Bangladeshi attack, reaching 368-4 at stumps to trail the visitors by just 127 runs at the end of the third day's play yesterday.

Opener Pathum Nissanka was the star of the day, smashing 187 off 256 balls, but missing out on a well-deserved double hundred after being dismissed by pacer Hasan Mahmud in the final half hour of the day.

Earlier, after resuming the day's play on 484-9, Bangladesh's innings survived only 16 balls on Day 3 before the side got bundled out for 494.

In their reply, the Sri Lankan batters scored at a much better rate than Bangladesh courtesy of Nissanka's top-class batting effort which was well supported by others.

Nissanka did not shy away from playing his shots and scored at a healthy strike-rate to keep the Bangladeshi bowlers at bay for majority of the day.

Dinesh Chandimal (54), Angelo Mathews (39) and Lahiru Udana (29) must be cursing themselves for not converting their starts into big scores but still, the hosts finished the day in a comfortable position.

Though Bangladeshi bowlers were at the receiving end throughout the third day, their pace bowling coach Shaun Tait shielded his bowlers from criticism and the only thing he felt Bangladesh could have done better on the day was their bowling with the new ball.

"It's obviously a good batting wicket. It was a difficult condition for fast bowlers today [Thursday]. They toiled hard and they gave effort," Tait said in the press conference after the end of the third day's play yesterday.

"We probably missed the trick with the new ball. It would have been nice to take a couple of wickets with the new ball. Apart from that, I'm not going to be negative. We batted for two days. You know it's a good batting wicket," said the former Aussie pacer.

Tait also heaped praises on the Sri Lankan batters for the way they batted and felt his side has a lot of hard work ahead of them in the next two days of the Test.

"They batted really well. Sri Lanka are no pushovers. This is the team which was competing to play in the World Test Championship final. So, they are no pushovers. They are a good side and they have some good batsmen," Tait said.

"I think people in general probably felt that the ball will start to turn from Day 3. But nothing significant happened and that's the way the game has been. Still a couple of days left in this match and Test cricket can turn very quickly," he added.