Prabath Jayasuriya terrorized Pakistan in the first session before Babar Azam struck a valiant 119, much of it in the company of No. 11 Naseem Shah, as the hosts surged back into the match either side of tea. Between Jayasuriya’s 5 for 82, and Pakistan’s 70-run last-wicket stand, the teams ended day two roughly even in the context of the match. Sri Lanka, who at one stage seemed set to take a commanding lead, claimed one of only four runs and were 40 runs ahead by stumps.
Babar’s century was extraordinary for how many of his runs came in the company of the tail. When Pakistan lost their seventh wicket, he was on 28. When they lost their eighth, on 36. One wicket to go, he was on 55. And this was when he started farming the strike beautifully, facing 133 of the 185 balls Sri Lanka delivered to the last-wicket pair.
It wasn’t as if he suddenly switched to hyper-aggression either. Sri Lanka put their field back for Babar, routinely putting at least seven fielders on the boundary while he was on strike, then bringing the field in for Naseem. Thanks in part to Naseem’s resolute defence, and refusal to be tempted into big shots even when the spinners tossed it tantalisingly into the air, Babar kept pressing. Occasionally, he would have enough of merely taking the single off the fourth or fifth ball, and ventured boundaries. Against Kasun Rajitha, for example, who he smoked down the ground, lashed over midwicket, then whipped aerially through deep square leg, to hit three successive boundaries off the last three balls of the over.
This was after Naseem had proven his mettle, though. Next over, he saw six Jayasuriya balls out, much to the frustration of the bowler, who kicked the turf when his last ball – a quicker one at the stumps – was blocked out. Naseem’s contribution to a 70-run partnership was just five runs. But he survived, unbeaten, for 52 balls.
This pair having come together roughly midway through the second session, Pakistan went to tea with Babar needing five more for his hundred, which he got three balls into resumption, whipping a full toss from Maheesh Theekshana through wide mid-on for four, before nurdling a single square on the legside to completed his seventh Test hundred, and third against Sri Lanka. He’d turned down many singles for the sake of keeping the strike before this.
He hit two more boundaries – a six over wide long-on off Jayasuriya, and four through square leg off the same bowler, before eventually Theekshana spun an offbreak through his defences and hit him in front of the stumps. The last-wicket stand had taken them from 148 for 9, to 218.
