Pasindu Sooriyabandara gave Sri Lanka something to fight with on a day that looked over before lunch. India had the hosts reeling at 216 for 7, well on the way to wrapping up the innings inside a session, when Sooriyabandara dug in alongside Sonal Dinusha and turned a rout into a genuine rearguard.
He didn’t survive to the close, eventually falling for 80 to Ravindra Jadeja, who kept probing away at the stumps and cramping the batters for room until the resistance finally cracked. But by the time he was out, Sooriyabandara had already done the damage that mattered, dragging Sri Lanka from the brink of an innings defeat into a position where they at least have a tail worth talking about.
Pasindu Sooriyabandara’s Innings Anchors the Middle Order
Sooriyabandara added 34 with Dinusha before departing, the kind of unglamorous, gritty partnership that doesn’t always show up in the highlights package but changes the complexion of a Test match all the same. India’s bowlers had done everything right to that point. Prasidh Krishna finished the day with 3 for 47, and the pace attack had Sri Lanka’s top and middle order in real trouble. Sooriyabandara’s innings was the difference between a Sri Lanka side that folds quietly and one that’s still, at least technically, alive in this Test.
Sonal Dinusha was the other half of the story, batting through to stumps unbeaten on 85 in a knock that’s now become something of a pattern for him in this series, standing tall while wickets fall around him. But it was Sooriyabandara’s 80 that did the early heavy lifting, absorbing the second new ball spell and taking the sting out of an Indian attack that had looked ready to bowl Sri Lanka out twice in a day.
Where the Colombo Test Stands After Day 3
Sri Lanka closed the day on 265 for 8, still trailing India’s first-innings 503 for 9 declared by 238 runs. India already lead the two-match series 1-0, and with two wickets still in hand for Sri Lanka, a first-innings deficit approaching 250 leaves the hosts needing something well out of the ordinary just to avoid the follow-on question becoming real. For a team that started the day in deep trouble, though, closing it 265/8 rather than bowled out inside three days counts as a small win in itself, and a lot of that comes down to what Sooriyabandara did in the middle session.
We covered the earlier stages of this Test, including Dhruv Jurel’s century that set up India’s total, in our Day 3 report on the Colombo Test. For the full scorecard and ball-by-ball detail, ESPNcricinfo’s match report has the complete breakdown of Day 3.
There’s also a broader pattern worth flagging here. Pasindu Sooriyabandara is still a relatively new face in Sri Lanka’s Test middle order, and innings like this one, gritty rather than glamorous, tend to matter more for a young batter’s long-term standing than a flashy fifty in a lost cause would. Selectors and coaching staff watch exactly this kind of situation closely: a team in real trouble, the required partnership unglamorous and slow, and a young player choosing to graft rather than take the easy way out and throw the bat. If Sri Lanka do go on to save this Test from here, memories of Sooriyabandara’s 80 will likely get more credit in hindsight than they’re getting in the immediate aftermath of the dismissal itself.
