Ramesh Mendis scalped three while Praveen Jayawickrama picked two wickets as Sri Lanka dismantled Bangladesh’s top-order to sniff victory on day four of the second Test on Sunday.
Bad light and a light drizzle forced early stumps in Pallekele on the penultimate day as Bangladesh scored 177/5 in the second innings. Liton Das and Mehidy Hasan are unbeaten on 14 and four runs respectively with the visitors needing 260 more runs to win the second Test. Sri Lanka needs five wickets to seal the Test series on day five (Monday) as the first game of the tour had ended in a draw last week.
In the first session on Sunday, Sri Lanka lost half their side with a lead of just over 360. The hosts resumed their innings at 17/2 on day four but lost Angelo Mathews early.
Karunaratne and Dhananjaya de Silva then carried the Sri Lanka innings before both batsmen went to the dugout. Dhananjaya de Silva played a counter-attacking knock as Sri Lanka’s lead crossed 350.
Sri Lanka lost a flurry of wickets against the run of play which saw the hosts declaring their innings at 194/9 to set a target of 437 for Bangladesh in the second Test.
In the second session, chasing the target, Bangladesh attacked, but Sri Lanka struck to reduce the visitors to 112/3 before tea.
Sri Lanka began the final session on a high picking skipper Mominul Haque and Mushfiqur Rahim as Bangladesh lost half of their side with still needing more than 250 runs for a win.
Mushfiqur, who was looking good, was dismissed on 40 as Ramesh Mendis picked his third wicket to reduce Bangladesh to 171/5. Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 493/7d and 194/9d (Dimuth Karunaratne 66; Taijul Islam 5-72); Bangladesh 251 and 177/5 (Mushfiqur Rahim 40, Saif Hassan 34; Ramesh Mendis 3-86)