On many occasions, Thilan Samaraweera has rescued Sri Lanka from tough situations. Yesterday, he did it once again with things extremely difficult helping Sri Lanka avoid the follow-on against New Zealand in the second Test at P. Sara Oval in Colombo.

Samaraweera had split the webbing between his middle and ring fingers on his right hand while fielding on Monday and he batted with three stitches while having a lot of pain killers to give the hosts hopes of drawing the Test and winning the series. That was after a disappointing effort by the hosts’ batsmen. When bad light forced an early end to day-three’s play, Sri Lanka were 225 for six with Samaraweera unbeaten on 76. The seventh wicket partnership between him and Suraj Randiv was worth 97 runs, a new record at P. Sara Oval.

By this time last year, Thilan was not part of the national squad. He had been unfairly dropped for the away Test series against Pakistan and only intense pressure forced the selectors to bring him back to the squad. The next series was going to be on the fast South African tracks and many said that with a dodgy technique, Samaraweera’s goose was cooked. But as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, Samaraweera rose to the occasion remarkably. He proved that he wasn’t a spent force by making back-to-back centuries in South Africa, whereas only one Sri Lankan had scored a century on South African soil before that. His gutty knock yesterday, yet again, may well decide the outcome of this Test.

Sri Lanka are still 187 runs behind New Zealand’s first innings total of 412 and with a long tail, they will be looking to get as close as possible to the New Zealand total.

Tim Southee accounted for the overnight batsmen Angelo Mathews and Tharanga Paranavithana in the morning and Samaraweera walked in with the total on 103 for five. At stumps, Sri Lanka’s total had moved to 225 for six, but more importantly with one up in the series, they had batted out two sessions.

Samaraweera was unbeaten on 76 having faced 156 balls and hit five fours. Randiv was 34 not out.

Samaraweera’s impressive average at SSC (77.43) is highly spoken about. But at P. Sara Oval, his statistics are truly Bradmanesque as he averages 99.50 here.

The Kiwis had a crack with the second new ball as well but couldn’t go on for too long as they were forced to bring on the spin bowlers due to the deteriorating light.

Randiv’s bowling in recent times has been ordinary, but yesterday his contributions with the bat were extremely vital for the side as he batted for over two and half hours showing good temperament. With young spinners emerging, there’s intense pressure on Randiv to hold onto his place. But he at least has Samaraweera to look up to; a man who had made his debut in 1999 as an off-spinner but went onto become one of country’s leading Test batsmen.

Source: Island (Sri Lanka)