DHAKA: A brilliantly unorthodox 96 from Sarfraz Ahmed and his 139-run partnership with Asad Shafiq hauled Pakistan back to level terms in the Galle Test.

Having been five down and 182 behind at the start of the fourth morning, Pakistan went to lunch with four wickets still in hand and the deficit whittled down to 41.

Last year, Sarfraz was the only Pakistan batsman who got on top of Rangana Herath during their tour of Sri Lanka. Where his team-mates were consumed by the thought of survival, he was constantly looking for runs, and challenging him with his unorthodoxy, often taking guard outside leg stump.

He made three fifties and a hundred in the two Tests, and the confidence from all those runs was apparent right from the third over of the morning, when he took a big stride forward to sweep Herath to the backward square leg boundary and followed it up with nimble footwork two balls later to get down the track and inside the line to drive inside-out through extra cover.

Sarfraz had a unique and effective response to all of Sri Lanka's bowlers. He stood outside leg stump when the offspinner Dilruwan Perera bowled from around the wicket and took an off-stump guard when he bowled from over the wicket, enabling him to get to the pitch of the ball easier when he tossed it up wide of off stump.

Against the fast bowlers, who hinted at reverse swing in the first hour, he took guard outside his crease - sometimes six inches outside, sometimes so far ahead of it that his feet may have straddled a second crease twice the distance from the stumps. From this position he clipped Dhammika Prasad against the around-the-wicket angle, and then used the pace to dab the ball to the third man boundary when he changed angle and dug it in short.

The scoring was rapid, comfortably over four an over even though Shafiq relied almost entirely on his defence at the other end. Sarfraz was on 15 and Shafiq on 14 when the day began. When Shafiq struck his first boundary of the day - a rasping square-cut off Nuwan Pradeep in the ninth over of the morning - he moved to 23. Sarfraz by that time had waltzed past 50.

Sarfraz and Shafiq looked entirely secure in their contrasting methods, and Sri Lanka's bowling - as cause or consequence - seemed to lack bite. Sri Lanka's tactics were also a touch puzzling, particularly their use of their main weapon. Herath went out of the attack after only one full over (and the remainder of the third evening's incomplete final over), and by the time he returned, both batsmen were comfortably set, and the deficit had been cut down to 116.

The same method that had brought Sarfraz his runs also led to his downfall when he was within reach of his fourth Test hundred. Prasad sent down a full ball outside off and Sarfraz stretched out to try and sweep him. It would have been breathtakingly audacious had it come off, but he only managed to drag the ball off his inside edge onto off stump.

Source: espncricinfo.com

BDST: 1525 HRS, JUN 20, 2015
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