Kusal Mendis, bowlers put Sri Lanka on the brink of victory

Sri Lanka continued to dominate the second Test match at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. Following Pathum Nissanka's 158 and a swashbuckling 84 from Kusal Mendis, the hosts claimed a 211-run lead before a collective bowling effort reduced Bangladesh to 115/6. The visitors are still trailing Sri Lanka by 96 runs with only four wickets in hand.

Continuing from his overnight score of 146, Nissanka quickly moved to 150 as the hosts went past 300. The second new ball was changed after just 2.1 overs with it getting wet and Taijul Islam removed Nissanka six balls later as the centurion pushed one to short cover. The left-arm spinner picked up captain Dhananjaya de Silva in his next over as the visitors began to roar back into the contest.

Sri Lanka weren't troubled from the other end as the Bangladesh pacers were loose - an opportunity which Kamindu Mendis pounced on with four boundaries in quick succession. But Nahid Rana picked up his first wicket of the series with that of nightwatchman Prabath Jayasuriya, who did his job to perfection, as the visitors continued to make inroads. Kusal and Kamindu had a short passage of play where they dealt in quick boundaries as the hosts began to wrestle back control. But the 51-run stand was broken when Nayeem Hasan breached Kamindu's defence on 33, at the stroke of Lunch.

The first ball after Lunch saw Sonal Dinusha reverse a caught behind decision through the recourse of DRS but he didn't last much longer with Nayeem rattling his stumps. Kusal moved to 50 off just 60 balls while Tharindu Rathanyake got off the mark with a maximum after playing a slog-sweep. The latter holed out to long-on soon after as the hosts lost their eighth wicket. Kusal then decided to switch gears and took on Nayeem with two sixes and a four across the offspinner's two overs as Sri Lanka's lead surpassed 200. It was also sandwiched with a boundary off Taijul but the 'keeper-batter's counter-attack ended having despairingly run himself out on 84. Taijul wrapped up the innings - picking up a five-fer - dismissing Asitha Fernando for a duck, as the hosts ended on 456.

Knowing the tough task in front of them, the Bangladesh openers were positive in the first few overs. The duo of Shadman Islam and Anamul Haque scored two boundaries each in the first five overs as they raced to 28/0 and it forced the hosts to turn to spin as early as the sixth over. But Asitha continued to operate from the other end and picked up the key wicket of Anamul, on what was the last ball of the second session.

It got worse for Bangladesh after the break as Shadman poked one behind to the 'keeper two balls into the session. Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mominul Haque then tried to play the survival game, blocking everything apart from one delivery which the Bangladesh skipper smashed into the stands. He tried to repeat the same shot again but survived a stumping chance. The two left-handers scored occasional boundaries off Jayasuriya.

De Silva then brought himself on and picked up Mominul for the second time in the Test before scalping Najmul in his third over. Things got worse for Bangladesh as Mushfiqur Rahim was bowled by Jayasuriya before Mehidy Hasan Miraz was given LBW on the last ball of the day.

Brief Scores:Bangladesh 247 (Shadman Islam 46, Mushfiqur Rahim 35; Sonal Dinusha 3-22, Asitha Fernando 3-51) & 115/6 (Mushfiqur Rahim 26, Anamul Haque 19; Dhananjaya de Silva 2-13, Prabath Jayasuriya 2-47) trail Sri Lanka 458 (Pathum Nissanka 158, Dinesh Chandimal 93, Kusal Mendis 84; Taijul Islam 5-131, Nayeem Hasan 3-87) by 96 runs.