Sri Lanka’s Dinesh Chandimal was crucially given a life on 30 when he was wrongly adjudged to have not edged behind off Mitchell Starc before going on to score a career-best 206*, during Australia’s defeat to Sri Lanka in the second Test in Galle.
Replays showed that Chandimal had in fact edged the short ball from Starc through to wicket-keeper Alex Carey, but with Australia having already used all three reviews, Chandimal was reprieved. He went on to play the leading role for Sri Lanka as they compiled a match-winning first-innings advantage of 180 runs.
The event shone a light on Australia’s poor use of their reviews, having lost all three in the space of 36 overs before the second new ball arrived. Teams currently have three reviews, as opposed to two to which they previously were entitled during Covid-19.
However, before they could use one against Chandimal, Australia were out of their three reviews: first, when appealing for a catch down the legside to Dimuth Karunaratne, before two unsuccessful LBW reviews in consecutive Nathan Lyon overs to Angelo Mathews and Chandimal.
Australia were almost immediately left to rue their lack of reviews, as ten overs later, from the bowling of Lyon, Mathews was given not out LBW before replays showed it was ‘three reds’. Just three more overs passed until Australia were once again cursing their review-less situation, as the vital Chandimal decision was made. In the space of two sessions of cricket, Australia had used all three of their reviews before being deprived of two wickets as a result.
Nevertheless, Chandimal’s innings was superb and he reached his century on day three before going on to cross 200 on day four. The total is comfortably his career-best in Test cricket, a figure which previously stood at 164. It was the right-hander’s 13th Test ton and second of the year, after scoring 124 against Bangladesh in May.
Sri Lanka would go on to win the second and final Test of the series by an innings and 39 runs as debutant Prabath Jayasuriya recorded the fourth-best ever match figures for a debutant, claiming 12-177 across Australia’s two innings. The series ended one-all.
