Lunch Afghanistan 198 and 251 for 7 (Jamal 9*, Naveed 0*, Jayasuriya 4-83) lead Sri Lanka 439 by 10 runs
Sri Lanka made substantial headway towards closing down the Test on the fourth morning, claiming six wickets to expose Afghanistan’s long tail.
They lost five wickets for 13 runs, either side of wiping out their deficit. They went to lunch 10 runs in front, but with only three wickets in hand.
Jayasuriya then entered the fray. He had Ibrahim dropped by Dinesh Chandimal on the deep square leg fence on 109, but would flummox the batter not long after. The ball now beginning to take turn, Zadran played for one that spun in the 90th over, but this one just went on with the arm, whizzed between bat and pad, and clattered into off stump, ending Afghanistan’s best innings of the match so far.
Hashmatullah Shahidi was out to one that did turn and took his outside edge, Qais Ahmad was caught beautifully by Dhananjaya de Silva, who dived forward at slip and intercepted the ball centimetres from the ground, and Zia-ur-Rehman left a Jayasuriya delivery that continued with the arm and crashed into off stump – the second time this match Jayasuriya claimed such a dismissal.