In the words of the great Ron Burgundy… well, that escalated quickly.
Australia needed just one session on the third day to wrap up an emphatic ten-wicket win and take a one-nil lead in the two-Test series against Sri Lanka; when taking into consideration a full session was lost to Thursday’s wild weather in Galle the speed of the victory was even more remarkable.
The dominance of spin was explicitly displayed through the success of part-time offspinner Travis Head, who took his first wickets in Test cricket and finished with figures of 4 for 10 off just 2.5 overs.
Sri Lanka’s hapless batting was exposed as Australia’s spinners took all ten wickets in just 22.5 overs, Nathan Lyon adding to his first innings five-wicket haul with another four and the rest falling to Mitchell Swepson.
Pat Cummins, who admitted after the match he hadn’t expected the game to finish so quickly, didn’t bother to bring himself on to bowl as he marshalled his bowlers and fielders expertly.
Sri Lanka appeared to be trying to emulate the tourists proactive approach to batting as soon as Asitha Fernando cleaned up Australia’s tail, which added just eight runs to the previous day’s total.
That left Australia with a handy first innings lead of 101 runs but Sri Lanka’s opening pair of Dimuth Karunaratne and Pathum Nissanka scored more than a quarter of those runs in the first four overs.
Mitchell Starc leaked 17 runs from the first over and he was taken out of the attack after his next, making way for a tweakers’ show that left the heads of spectators spinning at a rate only matched by the ball in the hands of Lyon, Swepson and Head.
But from the moment Lyon made the initial breakthrough — bowling around the wicket to Karunaratne, who misjudged and caught a faint bottom edge as swept over the top of the ball for Alex Carey to claim a sharp catch — Sri Lanka’s troubles snowballed into a procession of batters trekking between the dressing room and the crease.
The conventional wisdom of sweeping in such conditions proved fruitless for the players most familiar with them.
Both Nissanka and Kusal Mendis were out playing the shot, Swepson trapping Nissanka lbw and then Mendis top edging to a deep-ish square leg. The latter wicket was a tribute to the nous of Pat Cummins, who had brought Swepson in several metres from the deep square boundary, a move that left him in the perfect position to take the catch.
But if sweeping was treacherous, driving on this minefield was madness and Oshawa Fernando, coming into the side as a COVID-19 replacement for Angelo Matthews, paid the price for attempting it as he edged Swepson to Steve Smith at first slip.
On a day where every decision was rewarded, Cummins brought Head on to bowl the19th over and the part-timer struck with his second ball, clean bowling Dinesh Chandimal (13) with a ripping delivery that pitched outside off and jagged back in through the gap between bat and pad to smash middle and leg, leaving Chandimal staring at the stumps in disbelief.
Three balls later, Head claimed another victim, although it was debatable who showed poorer judgement out of Dhanajaya de Silva and standing umpire Kumar Dharmasena.
Dhananjaya didn’t offer a shot as he twisted his body awkwardly towards the leg side, so deep in his crease when the ball struck his back pad that an lbw decision seemed a mere formality.
Dharmasena kept his finger down but the review left no doubt and the decision was overturned.
But while Baz-ball is all the rage in England, there was a touch of Gaz-ball in Galle, as Lyon claimed the wickets of a sweeping Niroshan Dickwella and a reverse-sweeping Ramesh Mendis, both top-edging to well-placed fielders.
Mendis’ wicket secured Lyon’s outright tenth position on the all-time Test wickets list; the only spinners who have taken more are Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Ravichandran Ashwin.
But it was Head’s extravagant turn that finished off Sri Lanka’s floundering resistance as he cleaned bowled Jeffrey Vandersay and rapped Lasith Embuldeniya on the front pad to leave the home side all out for 113.
Australia needed five runs to win and it took David Warner just three balls to clobber a boundary and a six to seal the emphatic victory and ensure Australia go into the second Test filled with confidence.
“I'm really proud of the squad,” said Pat Cummins after the win. “It's really foreign conditions to us over here and I thought the way everyone played was was outstanding.
“We were really clear in our planning, how we were going to go about it. It's one thing talking about it, but I thought the bravery and the proactiveness showed by, especially our batters, was fantastic.”
While Australia’s were brilliant with the ball in hand, Cameron Green’s mature half-century earned him Player of the Match honours, his bowling not required on the third day.
“Someone like Greeny, he's grown up at the WACA and over in Perth and it's so different to here,” Cummins said. “Players go their whole career looking for a method that works in these conditions and in his first knock he's found it so really, really happy for him.
“He was fantastic, he was the difference.”
