Atapattu and Sangakkara frustrate Australia

Sri Lanka saved their most promising partnership of the tour until their final innings as Marvan Atapattu and Kumar Sangakkara frustrated Australia and guided Sri Lanka to 1 for 139 at tea. Their unbeaten 124-run stand came as Sri Lanka faced a gigantic task in chasing 507 for an unlikely victory.

Ricky Ponting was left searching for ideas during a rare wicketless session for Australia after Mitchell Johnson had removed Michael Vandort just before lunch. Stuart MacGill struggled to find his length and Australia's fast men could not extract much assistance from a pitch that remained good for batting late on the fourth day.

The quality pairing of Atapattu and Sangakkara did not allow Australia any room for error and at tea Sri Lanka needed a further 368 runs from four sessions with nine wickets in hand. Before this series Atapattu had not played a Test for nearly two years but he proved that his class had not deserted him with a composed half-century from 94 balls.

Atapattu's timing was outstanding and he managed nine fours on a ground whose outfield had been slow all day. He reached 74 at tea and was especially effective against MacGill, who sent down few deliveries that seriously threatened the batsmen. Too often he dropped short or overpitched and the batsmen rarely let him get away with it. Atapattu took 12 from one MacGill over, striking a trio of boundaries with an excellent cover drive, a well-timed cut that brought up his half-century, and a textbook pull in front of midwicket.

It helped him enormously to have such a good partner - Sangakkara was on 51 at tea and demonstrated how much Sri Lanka had missed him in Brisbane. He too picked a couple of boundaries off MacGill full tosses with a cover drive and a sweep but also worked runs comfortably against the fast bowlers.

Ponting no doubt wished he could call on Andrew Symonds, whose medium-pacers ended two promising partnerships in the first Test, however Symonds hurt his ankle while batting in the first innings and has not fielded in this match. Michael Clarke's part-time spin was employed but Atapattu and Sangakkara did not succumb.