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'Not going to be a day-five pitch' - Law

With Australia heading into the final day of the Pallekele Test needing 185 runs, and Sri Lanka requiring seven wickets, Australia's batting coach Stuart Law believes the dry, hard surface could aid his batsmen

In four completed Tests at the Pallekele Stadium, Sri Lanka have never been winners. In the only matches that reached a fourth innings, chasing sides have found no terrors on the pitch, particularly when Pakistan ran down 377 in the most recent Test at the venue.
With 185 more runs to get and seven wickets in hand, Australia batting coach Stuart Law is hoping the trend continues. Both teams were shot out for relatively modest first-innings totals, but counter to what is usually believed about Asian surfaces, Law said batting had become easier since then.
"It's not going to be a day-five pitch," he said. "We have played like three days thanks to the rain and light interruptions. History says that teams have chased big totals here before. Those pitches might have been prepared differently than for us, coming in.
"This pitch doesn't look like deteriorating a great deal. If you look at the footmarks, big Mitchell Starc has been bowling left-arm over, and has hardly broken the surface. It's hard as concrete and it's very dry. Overnight these conditions do tend to get the moisture back up into the surface. The first half-hour to an hour, can be tricky. But the wicket drying up shouldn't be a problem. The first two days it was tacky in the mornings. But it's progressively dried out, and is probably at its driest now."
But it is exactly that lack of moisture that Sri Lanka will hope their spinners will be able to exploit on day five. Several deliveries took sharp turn on day four - particularly Lakshan Sandakan's stock ball to dismiss Joe Burns - and with three frontline spinners in his XI, Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford hoped the seven wickets would be forthcoming.
"I think we've fought really hard to get ourselves into a situation when we can win this Test match," he said. "Pleasingly, a few balls started to turn quite sharply before the players came off for bad light. Hoping tomorrow that a few things will go our way, and we'll be able to press home."
Ford also said Sri Lanka would have been "in the driving seat" had the lbw decision against Adam Voges been upheld. Voges had been given out when rapped on the pad first ball by Dilruwan Perera, but projections showed that ball to be missing leg stump. Voges remains at the crease with Steven Smith, and the two are reputed to be Australia's best players of spin.
"They are class players and their records are outstanding," Ford said. "The partnership is crucial and if we can break it in the morning - who knows what can happen? Day-five pitch - I know it hasn't had a full four days on it, but it is a wearing wicket. One just has to misbehave, and that can break a partnership."
Law agreed that the overnight stand was a crucial one. "The two guys who are batting at the moment need to put up a good partnership," he said. "Everyone else has to chip in where they can. We are still confident. We always want to play to win and not to draw."

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @andrewffernando