Kusal Mendis did not look back from the time he was dropped on 9. After that initial struggle where he seemed completely out of sorts, he staged a fine recovery to lead Sri Lanka's charge, along with Dananjaya de Silva to put the visitors in the driver's seat. Although de Silva fell in the second session after a brilliant 173, Mendis went on to get to his career-best 196, but fell short of his maiden double century for the second time, after having been dismissed in the 190s once before. Roshen Silva was unbeaten on 38 as Sri Lanka went to Tea at 416 for 3, trailing by 97 in Chittagong.
While Mendis struggled initially to get going on Day 3, de Silva continued from where he left off and reached his highest Test score as the pitch did little to assist Bangladesh's bowlers, which was spinning, but not to the extent of creating hurdles for the pair. They seemed even more comfortable against spin in the second session which fetched them 121 runs. After the second new ball was taken, Mustafizur struck early in the second session sending de Silva back after the duo brought up their 300-run stand for the second wicket. Going for the pull, de Silva top-edged to Liton Das and perished.
It seemed like that was all the joy that Bangladesh would have in the session as Roshen Silva had little trouble pairing up with Mendis to add 107 runs for the third wicket, but towards the end of the session, they prized out the big fish Mendis who perished to the top-edge again. Approaching the milestone didn't change his approach to how he went about his knock. He still attacked, belting a six and a four off Mosaddek Hossain to make his way into the 190s. However, a sudden lapse in concentration brought about his downfall as Mushfiqur Rahim picked out a brilliant running catch.
Mendis used his feet well, getting onto the back foot with ease against the spinners with little trouble. Having been unbeaten on 83 at the start of play on Friday (February 2), he reached his century after almost 50 balls in a passage of play where 5 runs came in about 25-odd balls. While Mendis was sedate early on, de Silva though, was fluent, and clobbered away boundaries at will, keeping up with the momentum he created around his innings yesterday and raced away to his highest Test score after surpassing the 150-run mark, which came in just 187 balls. He also became the joint-fastest to 1000 Test runs for Sri Lanka along with Roy Dias and Michael Vandort.
It wasn't the case of Bangladesh not having had created opportunities, but their inability to make the most of them after having missed a catch, a stumping chance and a possible run-out too. They had periods when there was an appeal or two after having kept things tight, but what followed was a flurry of boundaries from the Sri Lankans to put the pressure right back on the hosts. Skipper Mahmudullah, who was on the back foot, even resorted to bringing in part-timer Mominul Haque in the search of a wicket, but little came from it as he bowled just the one over.
Mahmudullah's tactics seemed unimaginative too as the skipper set defensive field placements and also made some unexplainable bowling changes, like for example underbowling Mehidy Hasan, who picked up the sole wicket in the Sri Lankan innings early on yesterday. Even then, he only bowled just the one over (the third) and then only came back in the 14th for just one other. While Taijul Islam and debutant Sunzamul Islam have bowled 63 overs between them, Mehidy has bowled just the 19.
Brief scores: Bangladesh 513 (Tamim Iqbal 52, Mominul Haque 176, Mushfiqur Rahim 92, Mahmudullah 83*; Suranga Lakmal 2-68, Rangana Herath 3-150, Lakshan Sandakan 2-92) lead Sri Lanka 416/3 (Dhananjaya de Silva 173, Kusal Mendis 196, Roshen Silva 38) by 97 runs.
