Sri Lanka trail India by 51 runs at lunch on Day 3

Former captain Mahela Jayawardene approached his century and brought Sri Lanka close to India’s first innings total on the third day of the first cricket test on Wednesday.

Jaywardene was scored a fluent 86 as Sri Lanka moved to 375-5 at lunch -- 51 runs away from India’s total of 426.

Jayawardene raised the best partnership of the innings as he added 138 runs for the fourth wicket with Thilan Samaraweera (70) after Sri Lanka had resumed at the overnight 275-3.

Paceman Ishant Sharma provided the much-needed breakthrough with the second new ball when Yuvraj Singh took a splendid catch at short square leg to dismiss Samaraweera. Yuvraj timed his leap perfectly and held onto a superb catch as Samaraweera tried to pull a short pitched delivery.

Samaraweera hit nine boundaries in his 145-ball knock.

Jayawardene was in sublime form and hit fast bowler Zaheer Khan for three successive boundaries in one over with the new ball and also hit offspinner Harbhajan Singh for a straight six.

Jaywardene had hit eight fours in his knock and faced 138 deliveries.

Harbhajan gave India another breakthrough in the last over before lunch when he had Angelo Matthews (17) caught close to the wicket on the on-side by Gautam Gambhir.

Both India’s pacemen Zaheer (2-64) and Sharma (2-83) had two wickets apiece while Harbhajan had to wait until his 27th over to get his first wicket.