Jayawardenes' juggernaut rolls on

The agony kept piling on the Indian bowlers as the Mahela-Prasanna partnership grew in size and stature. Both took the Lankan total to a mammoth 708 for 5, stretching the lead over India to 282 at the end of the first session on day-four.

Mahela-Prasanna duo put on a world record partnership of 351 runs for the 6th wicket. © AFP

While the senior Jayawardene (Mahela 267*) added 50 more runs to his sixth double ton and completed 9,000 runs in Test cricket (ninth batsmen to have done so) his junior namesake (Prasanna 134*) impressed all and sundry with a solidly built century — his second in Tests.

The wicketkeeper played an extremely patient knock and earned most of his runs by running hard between the wickets — his first 100 runs contained a mere eight hits to the fence. Even after he got to the three-figure mark, he showed the maturity to carry on till the lunch.

As Ishant Sharma emerged with the new ball in his hand on the morning of day-four, it was refreshing to see some close-in fielders replacing the men patrolling the boundaries. MS Dhoni finally got out of the mind-set of containing the batsmen and decided to go for wickets with two slips and a gully, doing away with the deep-point and deep square-leg fielders.

Prasanna Jayawardene is delighted after reaching his second Test century. © AFP

But the gentle medium pacers from Ishant and Zaheer at around 125kph didn’t help India’s cause as it gave the Lankan batsmen ample time to plan their shots. Ishant was highly wayward with his line and kept leaking runs in abundance through the off-side.

Mahela, in particular cashed in on the listless bowling to execute some elegant drives, cuts and flicks. He timed the ball to perfection and continued from where he left on day-three.

Harbhajan came into the attack in the 11th over of the day, hoping to reverse his unimpressive performance in the match so far but failed to trouble the Lankan batsmen.

His spinning ally Amit Mishra was once again treated with disdain, as Mahela danced down the track twice in his first over to score two boundaries. He was equally harsh on off-spinner Harbhajan and scored effortlessly against him to further crush his already dented confidence.