Prabath Jayasuriya sets off an Afghanistan-wide decline, bringing Sri Lanka closer to combat

After Ibrahim scored 114 and Shah scored 54, Afghanistan lost five wickets for 13 runs. After lunch, Afghanistan scored 198 and 251 for 7 (Jamal 9*, Naveed 0*, Jayasuriya 4-83), leading Sri Lanka 439 by 10 runs.

On the fourth morning of the Test, Sri Lanka made significant progress in tying the score, taking six wickets to expose Afghanistan's long tail.

Five overs into the day, Sri Lanka's attack looked far more dangerous when they bowled with the second new ball as opposed to their labor on day three. Prabath Jayasuriya's left-arm spin proved to be the most advantageous, as the ball now bit off a drying surface when he landed it on the hard, new seam. By the end of the session, he had taken four wickets and was creating opportunities nearly every over; Asitha Fernando and Kasun Rajitha took one apiece.

No batter from Afghanistan truly made it big. Before being dismissed for 114, centurion Ibrahim Zadran only added 13 to his score from the previous night. Rahmat Shah added just eight runs to his third career fifty, though. Together, they had scored 108 runs to put Afghanistan within striking distance of the lead, but as the session came to an end, their collapse made it much less likely that Sri Lanka would be the next test target.

After eliminating their deficit, they lost five wickets for thirteen runs. Despite having only three wickets remaining, they went to lunch 10 runs ahead of schedule.

To break the extended Ibrahim-Shah stand, Kasun Rajitha, who is replacing Chamika Gunasekara due to a concussion, made the initial cut. He angled one into Shah in his opening over with the second new ball, then straightened it slightly off the seam, on roughly a fourth-stump line. Due to his forced participation, Shah gave the wicketkeeper a slight advantage.

And Jayasuriya joined the battle. On 109, he had Ibrahim dropped by Dinesh Chandimal on the deep square leg fence, but shortly after, he would confound the batter. Now that the ball was starting to turn, Zadran played for one that had spun in the ninetieth over, but this one simply continued with the arm, skipping between the bat and pad and clattering into the off stump to end Afghanistan's best innings of the game thus far.

Qais Ahmad was brilliantly caught by Dhananjaya de Silva, who dove forward at slip and intercepted the ball centimeters from the ground; Hashmatullah Shahidi was out to a delivery that did turn and took his outside edge; and Zia-ur-Rehman left a Jayasuriya delivery that continued with the arm and crashed into off stump – the second time this match Jayasuriya claimed such a dismissal.

The best seamer for Sri Lanka thus far in this match, Asitha Fernando, also added a wicket to his tally in between the wickets taken by Jayasuriya. Ikram Alikhil edged one to second slip after he bowled back of a length outside off stump, and Kusal Mendis also made a superb low catch diving forward.