When the pitches bake and the shadows lengthen, Test cricket laid bare the frailties of a young batsman who had faced a world-class bowling attack in Sri Lanka but had made the county look like home.
Facing the Indians in Colombo, the left-hander was in excellent form, scoring an unbeaten 85 as he took his side's salvage operation.
Sonal Dinusha Joining the Legends
Sonal Dinusha's latest exploit has further added to his already stellar reputation, having scored a brilliant unbeaten 85 in Colombo after recording consecutive scores of 100 and 84 in Galle, becoming only the third batter in Test cricket's history to score 80 or more in each of his first three innings against India.
The young and talented Sri Lankan is now placed in the exclusive company of West Indies legend Sir Everton Weekes and Pakistan's Zaheer Abbas, as no other player has scored three Test centuries before coming up against India since Weekes and Abbas achieved the feat in the 1970s.
Sonal Dinusha played a vital role for Sri Lanka, who were in deep trouble after being asked to follow on after posting a modest total of 265/8 in response to India's first innings total of 503/9.
At the fall of the eighth wicket, Sri Lanka were in deep trouble, facing their biggest chase with a deficit of 238 runs. Coming in at number seven, Dinusha stood tall against the Indian bowlers spearheaded by pacer Prasidh Krishna, who had tormented the Sri Lankan batsmen with a strike rate of 3/47.
However, the young left-hander took the attack to the bowler and scored 6 boundaries and 2 sixes during his 137-ball innings before bad light and rain interrupted the play.
Sonal Dinusha's bright future
India, on the other hand, seems confident that they can manage to wrest control of the Test match after the young left-hander scored 85 on Sunday. However, Sri Lanka's hopes are greatly bolstered by the fact that Dinusha displayed a solid technique and temperament to score a well-deserved century on his way to an unbeaten 85 in Colombo.
