Sensing his battered troops needed a lift, Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene attempted to carry the entire nation on his shoulders in his last match in charge – and nearly succeeded.
Jayawardene, who will step down from the captaincy at the end of this Test, has stayed stoic despite a disastrous tour of a country where Sri Lanka have never won a Test.
Perhaps he just needed some positive memories from what is likely to be his final Test in Australia.
And so, missing his best batsman Kumar Sangakkara with a finger injury, Jayawardene thrust himself up the order and into the action like only a captain can.
And so he hit an impressive counter-attacking 72 and, in the process, moved back up to eighth on the list of Test run-scorers.
His aggressive knock did the trick, with youngster Lahiru Thirimanne describing the knock as “one of the best in Test cricket” – after he himself had posted a gritty 91 to frustrate Australia’s four-pronged pace attack.
“Mahela batted really well under pressure. Today I saw (from) Mahela, one of the best knocks in Test cricket,” Thirimanne said.
Slashing cuts and controlled pull shots meshed with the odd slice of luck for Jayawardene – such as when on four, Michael Hussey’s normally bank-vault safe hands spilled a bona fide chance.
From the moment he walked to the crease at 1-26, Jayawardene set the tempo.
While veteran teammate Tillakaratne Dilshan attempted to lift the run rate, Jayawardene forced the issue.
The 35-year-old pulled in front of square on the front foot against Mitchell Johnson, the man who broke bones in Melbourne, and went after spinner Nathan Lyon, as he’d promised to do before the Boxing Day massacre.
While his strokeplay was varied and aggressive, it was a defensive single off Johnson that lifted him to 23 for the day and 10,697 for his career as he went past West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul on the all-time Test runs list.
Jayawardene’s history against Australia has been decidedly dimmer than that of almost any other team – only his average of 30.63 against Pakistan is more feeble than the 31 he scores against the Aussies.
In fact, Thursday was just the sixth time he’d passed 50 against Australia.
He reached that milestone, from 77 balls no less, with another smattering of good fortune when a thick edge fell just short of Hussey at second slip and raced to the ropes for his eighth boundary.
And just as he looked like wresting control away from Australia midway through the middle session, blasting 11 runs from one Lyon over, Jayawardene was gone – caught by Michael Clarke at first slip off a fired up Mitchell Starc.
The decision was reviewed in search of a front-foot no ball that would save Sri Lanka’s great hope but, for the first time all day, it deserted him.
