Twitter Reactions: Sri Lanka stage a comeback on Day 3 against West Indies

While the first two days of the Test match clearly belonged to the West Indies Side, the visitors made a strong comeback on Day 3. They showed that the game was nowhere close to being finished and they came all guns blazing on a day that would be very important in deciding the result of this match.

The hosts had finished with a score of 268/8 at stumps on Day 2. It took the Lankan bowlers just two overs on Day 3 to get them bowled out for 271 runs. Vishwa Fernando, who had been wicketless thus far, accounted for both the batsmen in his first over of the day. Rahkeem Cornwall was dismissed after playing a brilliant inning of 61 runs.

The batsmen had done their job and given the Caribbean side a lead of 102 runs. The Sri Lankan batsmen needed to be at their best to give a tough fight in this match. The West Indian bowlers were high on confidence after a brilliant display in the first innings and would have hoped to repeat the same this time around as well. However, the batsmen had different plans this time around.

Oshada Fernando misses out on his well deserved ton

Kemar Roach, who opened the bowling for the hosts, was on target once again. He bowled tight lines and did not let the batsmen get comfortable. He set up Dimuth Karunaratne very smartly to get him clean bowled on the last ball of his third over.

Lahiru Thirimanne, on the other end, played a very mature knock. He scored 76 runs in the 201 balls he played. He used the DRS system to good effect when he was wrongly given out on the score of 32. The Sri Lankan number three Oshada Fernando, though, was the man who stole the show. He played really well to score 91 runs off 149 balls and would be really disappointed that he missed on his well-deserved hundred.

Both the set batsmen were dismissed in quick succession and Dinesh Chandimal failed to make an impact. At 189/4 it seemed like the Asian team could be heading towards a collapse. However, a good partnership between Dhananjaya de Silva and Pathum Nissanka took them to a score of 255/4 at stumps on Day 3. With a lead of 153 runs, they are definitely back in this game. For the hosts, Roach and Kyle Mayers took two wickets each.