Sri Lanka fight back, Mendis avoids the Olympic rings and when do you use a seamer? TEST MATCH TALKING POINTS

SAM MORSHEAD runs the rule over events in Galle as Sri Lanka showed plenty of bottle to claw back towards parity on day three of the first Test against England

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Sri Lanka’s change of fortune

For two days Sri Lanka had been very much second best, but there was a slight momentum shift in the second hour of Saturday’s opening session - and it set the tone for the rest of day three.

It came at a time when Joe Root and Jos Buttler appeared to have settled down for the day: their fifth-wicket partnership was worth 68 in 19 overs and runs were readily flowing - in the first hour, 42 came at a rate of more than five per over.

At 372 for 4, with so much time left in the game, and two devastatingly talented batsmen very much in, Sri Lanka’s situation looked more ominous than the dark, heavy clouds which often roll into Galle off the Indian Ocean. 

They needed their fortune to change, and so it did with the need for a fresh ball after the lump of leather which England had enjoyed for so long went out of shape.

The new ball seemed to be much more sympathetic to the hosts’ plight in this match, and immediately offered the movement to seamer Asitha Fernando which its predecessor had steadfastly avoided.

Fernando’s first delivery jagged away late, kissed Buttler’s outside edge and gave Niroshan Dickwella a simple catch; his second swung in late to the left-handed Sam Curran and took with it the allrounder’s off stump.

On the Sri Lanka balcony, head coach Mickey Arthur was as happy as he has been all week. England proceeded to lose six wickets for 49 runs, before the home side’s opening batsman rediscovered their staying power and by the end of the day, with eight wickets in hand, the deficit had been reduced to 130.

When a butterfly flaps its wings.

^{Sam Curran is bowled by Asitha Fernando}

Broad’s DRS doubletake

Life is never dull when Stuart Broad is at the crease.

Such is the allure of Broad, whose fluctuating fortunes with the bat have been extensively covered over the course of his career, there is a Twitter feed dedicated to calling out whenever the England veteran is heading to the wicket. 

And unlike some social media fad accounts - Jack Leach’s glasses, Mickey Arthur’s shorts and the like - there is at least some public interest in such a service.

Broad’s latest incarnation - a swashbuckling tailender unafraid to slog sweep his first ball and hellbent on clearing the front foot to chop over cover or wide midwicket - means his often shortlived time in the middle is never dull.

And so it proved again on Saturday, albeit for an unusual reason.

Broad found himself given out lbw on the field twice in the same Dilruwan Perera over, yet ended the innings not out. 

The first successful review showed the ball going on with the angle and missing leg stump after striking Broad on the boot on the full, while the second turned too much and Hawkeye claimed its trajectory would miss off. 

It is only the second time in Tests that the same batsman has overturned two dismissals in a single over. Both involve England - Moeen Ali is the other man to have gone through the experience, in Chattogram on the 2016-17 tour of Bangladesh. More tellingly, both have involved the same umpire: Kumar Dharmasena.

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Fernando!

Asitha Fernando’s sudden impact on the game highlighted just how little he had been used by his captain in the first two days.

Fernando, an inexperienced 23-year-old playing in just his second Test, was given just 14 of the 117.1 overs sent down by Sri Lanka’s bowlers in England’s first innings. More tellingly, he was not given the new ball 80 overs in, with his country desperate for a wicket.

Instead, Lasith Embuldeniya and Dilruwan Perera churned through 81.1 overs between them.

“I thought he was underbowled. I think the captain had enough trust in him because he doesn’t have much experience at that level,” Mahela Jayawardene, the former Sri Lanka skipper, lamented.

“Sometimes the spinners get tired and you’re not getting the right purchase. You shouldn’t use your spinners for more than seven or eight overs. You should use your fast bowlers in between, just to break the rhythm of the batsmen.”

Fernando’s removal of Jos Buttler and Sam Curran in successive deliveries, both with late movement, ought to have given Dinesh Chandimal pause for thought ahead of the second game of the series.

^{Joe Root celebrates his double century}

Relief for Kusal

Most of Planet Cricket will have been rooting for Kusal Mendis as he made his way to the wicket on Saturday.

Even England captain Joe Root was driven to give Sri Lanka’s beleaguered batsman a glove-punch when he arrived at the crease, as if to gee up Mendis as he looked to end a wretched run of form.

Mendis, who has seven Test centuries to his name let’s not forget, had been dismissed for nought in four successive innings, earning himself the nickname Audi - a homage to the car manufacturer’s four-ringed logo.

Only three men had five back-to-back bagels. 

In a bid to help him out of the rut, Mendis called his former teammate Mahela Jayawardene after his first-innings dismissal. Jayawardene told him that it was Mendis who should enlighten him about the position in which he found himself. “We laughed,” Jayawardene said.

Any laughter Mendis managed as he set himself on Saturday would have been nervous, however, and early in his innings the strain of his predicament showed as he fiddled at the wicket, blocking and half-heartedly sweeping at Jack Leach, before finally finding a gap in the field.

For the first time in the match, the canned crowd noise provided by the host broadcaster - which has been as enthusiastic for singles to third man as it has Joe Root’s double hundred - seemed absolutely fitting.

Social media celebrated in unison. 

Only the most ardent England fan, and perhaps a handful of disappointed stattos, could have been disappointed. 

Hop on

The long-hop is proving to be a potent weapon in The Moose Cup Powered By Daraz.

Dom Bess exploited the ‘variation’ during his filthy five-for in the first innings at Galle, and it was the same rank delivery which gave England their breakthrough in the third.

Kusal Perera appeared to learn the lessons of his first outing in this match, when he reverse swept the second ball bowled by an English spinner in Asia for two and a half years straight to slip, and over the course of 35 overs put together an elegant and composed half-century.

He picked his aggressive shots thoughtfully and battled through the pain of being struck in the hand by a 90mph Mark Wood bouncer. 

How frustrated he would have been, then, to uppercut a grotty, wide, sit-up-and-slap-me delivery from Sam ‘He Makes Things Happen’ Curran down the throat of the only England fielder positioned between fine leg and Malaysia.

Curran afforded himself a sly smile. He knew what we all know: England’s bowlers have been the beneficiaries of plenty of good fortune and poor batsmanship in this Test.

^{Moeen Ali is out of isolation}

Moeen’s back

Moeen Ali's long stint of isolation in Sri Lanka is over and the allrounder has rejoined his England teammates in Galle.

Moeen tested positive for Covid-19 upon arrival in Sri Lanka on January 3 and has spent the past 13 days in quarantine.

Local rules originally dictated that he spend 10 days in isolation but that was subsequently extended at the request of local authorities after Moeen exhibited mild symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

He was allowed out of his hotel room on Saturday afternoon and immediately travelled to the stadium in Galle to watch his teammates in action on day three of the first Test.

Moeen could in theory be available for the second Test, which is due to start on Friday, but with just five days of practice available to him after nearly two weeks of quarantine, the first Test in India - from February 5 - appears a more likely option.

All pictures courtesy of Sri Lanka Cricket