Stumps Sri Lanka 114 for 3 (Udara 42, Kamindu 40*, Saqib 2-54) trail Pakistan 434 for 9 dec (Shakeel 93, Asitha 3-107, Madushanka 3-108) by 320 runs
Pakistan piled on 434 runs and then their seamers removed Sri Lanka's top three, to leave the visitors firmly on the back foot, still 320 runs behind at stumps on day two in Rawalpindi. At the crease were Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis, on 22 and 40 respectively, as bad light brought about an early close to play at 4.20pm local time.
The pair of Kamindu and Dhananjaya produced a counter of sorts in the final hour of play, putting on 49 off 62 deliveries, but Sri Lanka will have their work cut out when play resumes on the third morning, particularly in the face of a Pakistan seam attack that has shown to be far more effective than their visiting counterparts.
The first couple of wickets told a story, with both Pasindu Sooriyabandara and Dinesh Chandimal squared up by some textbook fast bowling. Sooriyabandara was the first to fall, having been promoted to open the innings in just his third Test. It was a classic Mohammed Abbas delivery doing the damage, as he persevered on a tight off stump line and extracted just enough movement away to take the right-hander's outside edge.
Saqib Khan then got in on the act to mark his debut with a peach to remove the veteran Chandimal, angling a length ball from wide of the crease before straightening it down the line and coaxing the leading edge. It was a delivery good enough on its own to justify his inclusion in the XI.
Those dismissals came in the final hour before tea, a period in which Lahiru Udara offered almost sole resistance in a boundary-strewn innings. But it was that same aggression which would be his downfall, as he produced a casual waft outside off to edge through to the keeper. It was a second wicket for Saqib, and one he had telegraphed a few deliveries prior when Udara had been dropped at gully going for a similarly lose drive.
Kamindu, meanwhile, received some good fortune of his own having a tight lbw decision go his way on umpire's call and then a chance fall short of backward point. There was also a run-out opportunity missed. Then as the day wound down to a close, he was able to just about ground his bat in time after a viciously struck drive from Dhananjaya had deflected on to the non-striker's stumps off Arafat Minhas' outstretched hands.
The most glaring takeaway though for Sri Lanka would have been how much more disciplined Pakistan's seamers looked to be. Where Sri Lanka's seamers largely failed to string together a series of deliveries in a vaguely similar area, Pakistan's delivery map was essentially a Venn diagram of good length and back of length bowling, living in a channel outside off. And as a result they have been able to extract far more from the surface on a more consistent basis.
That said, Sri Lanka's batting fortunes did improve as the ball got older, and the likes of Kamindu and Dhananjaya got themselves set. Kamindu in particular began finding his range on his spread of drives - something that has been a hallmark of his best form - while Dhananjaya, freed from the responsibilities of captaincy, seemed to be playing with a touch more clarity than he has in recent times.
That they were batting as much as they did on day two, however, would have been unexpected, particularly when Saud Shakeel was going strong in the morning session. There Shakeel moved along untroubled, as he put together stands of 96 and then 44 with Ghazi Ghori and Arafat.
At that point Pakistan might have been eyeing a total of around 500, with the hope of putting Sri Lanka into bat towards the end of the day's play. However those plans were fast altered when Shakeel nicked an attempted hook down leg against the run of play.
It was a short ball that brought about the dismissal, and a pretty innocuous one at that. Shakeel, who last scored a Test century in October 2024, would have been bitterly disappointed at having thrown is wicket away after having done so well to play himself up to that point.
This was particularly prevalent during the morning, when both he and Ghazi had kept a steady scoring rate of around four an over with minimal effort, simply working the singles and procuring the odd boundary on merit.
Shakeel's wicket was also Asitha Fernando's 100th Test scalp - making him the fifth Sri Lankan seamer, and 10th Sri Lankan overall, to reach the milestone - and would signal the start of a rousing period of play where Sri Lanka would pepper the batters with short pitch deliveries, and Pakistan would swing at nearly everything.
Unsurprisingly this period coincided with the arrival of Razaullah, whose uber attacking approach more or less paid dividends in his brief stay. With Shakeel gone, the strategy had shifted from one of incremental gains to getting as many runs in as short a time as possible.
What ensued was a slapdash 45 minutes of play where Arafat and Razuallah plundered 41 runs off 30 deliveries, with a combination of hard slogs and more than a sprinkle of good fortune, as well as a top edge dropped and others falling safe.
Eventually both batters wound up falling in quick succession - but not before Arafat reached a debut Test fifty - and the second of those dismissals prompted the declaration. But perhaps the change in tact was also dictated by the potential for rain disruptions later on the Test.
In any event, the effectiveness of Pakistan's seamers seemed to have vindicated those choices, and Sri Lanka will do well to claw themselves back into this game.
