AUSTRALIA’S spinners have bowled them to the verge of consecutive Test series wins abroad for the first time in 14 years after Sri Lanka fell in a heap on the third morning of their series-opener in Galle.
On a treacherous Galle pitch that made part-time off-spinner Travis Head (4-10) look like Muttiah Muralitharan, the Aussies surged to victory chiefly on the efforts of Nathan Lyon, who claimed nine wickets for the match.
In a sign of the volatile nature of the rapidly deteriorating surface, Head had two top-order victims in his first five balls and clean-bowled Dinesh Chandimal and Jeffrey Vandersay with near unplayable off-breaks in a remarkable spell.
Without a wicket to his name coming into this match, Head ended up with four in 17 balls and was applauded off the field by the Australians after they routed Sri Lanka for 113 in just 22.5 overs.
David Warner then knocked off the five runs required to win with a four and a six to clinch the 10-wicket win before lunch.
It was Australia’s second fastest Test win since 1946, with the entire match lasting just 920 balls.
Sri Lanka, whose cause was not aided by the absence of their most accomplished batter Angelo Mathews, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, lost their last eight wickets for 54 in just 70 deliveries.
Following their series-sealing victory over Pakistan in Lahore earlier this year, Australia’s win at the beachside city on the island’s south coast has handed them their first successive Test victories in Asia since they knocked off Bangladesh twice in 2006.
A win in Galle again next week will mark consecutive away Test series wins for the first time since 2008.
The visitors took a 109-run first-innings lead after paceman Asitha Fernando snared the remaining two Australian wickets in quick time on Friday morning, though the Aussies swiftly squandered a third of that advantage through just five overs to begin Sri Lanka’s second innings.
But, following on from his first-innings return of 5-90, Lyon soon looked like taking a wicket with every ball as he snared 4-31 and bowled unchanged from the city end.
If skipper Pat Cummins needed any convincing that pace was about as effective on this surface as an umbrella in a hurricane, Mitchell Starc’s 17-run first over might have done it.
Cummins did not even need to bowl himself as his slow bowlers ran rampant.
Lyon commenced the carnage, courtesy of a sharp catch from Alex Carey off a Dimuth Karunaratne bottom edge, with the off-spinner adding the scalps of both Mendises (Kusal and Ramesh) and Niroshan Dickwella.
Mitch Swepson (2-34) took his match wicket tally to five as he dismissed Pathum Nissanka and Mathews’ substitute Oshada Fernando.
The sweep and reverse-sweep shots, so expertly played by the tourists in their first-innings haul of 321, proved more perilous for the Sri Lankans, with Nissanka, the two Mendises, and Dickwella all out to the stroke. (Cricket.com .au)

SRI LANKA 1st innings 212
AUSTRALIA 1st innings 321
SRI LANKA 2nd innings
Pathum Nissanka lbw Mitchell Swepson 14
Dimuth Karunaratne c Alex Carey b Nathan Lyon 23
Kusal Mendis c Mitchell Swepson b Nathan Lyon 8
Oshada Fernando c Steven Smith b Mitchell Swepson 12
Dhananjaya de Silva lbw Travis Head 11
Dinesh Chandimal b Travis Head 13
Niroshan Dickwella c Marnus Labuschagne b Nathan Lyon 3
Ramesh Mendis c Usman Khawaja b Nathan Lyon 0
Jeffrey Vandersay b Travis Head 8
Lasith Embuldeniya lbw Travis Head 0
Asitha Fernando not out 5
Extras: (b-10, lb-5, nb-1) 16
Total; (all out, 22.5 overs) 113
Fall of wickets: 1-37, 2-39, 3-59, 4-63, 5-95, 6-96, 7-97, 8-108, 9-108.
Bowling: Mitchell Starc 2-0-23-0, Nathan Lyon 11-1-31-4, Mitchell Swepson 7-0-34-2 (nb-1), Travis Head 2.5-0-10-4.