“At least get two wickets with that and get the bowlers [lower-order batters] in. But definitely we need to [focus on] that economy rate, especially. So we need to have a mixture of attacking while defending, especially with that new ball, to not five them a good start.”

There’s reason to feel confident. After all, Dhananjaya de Silva fell second ball after the ball was changed at the start of the 81st over.

At lunch on the first day, Sri Lanka were 99 for 2. By the end of the second session, they had reached 224 for 2, that’s 125 runs without losing a wicket in 23 overs. That’s when Udara and Kamindu scored a bulk of their runs.

“We are still struggling in that period just after lunch, going for over 100 runs. I think that’s the main area that we fell out there,” Rampaul said. “We came back after tea really good, picking up two wickets, but it seems to have something just after lunch, that session that, you know, we keep going for runs and are a little more inconsistent in our lengths.”

“I know Jayden for a long time and I definitely could say he’s a hard-worker. He works hard at his craft. He takes advice a lot as well as doing a lot of research on itself, planning well against the opposition,” Rampaul said, adding that the wait to get from 95 to 100 had been frustrating for the bowler, who last played a Test in December last year before coming into this series.

“That six [five] wickets seemed a long way away for him,” Rampaul said. “It was a little bit [of a] frustrating time, but very happy that he reached the milestone.”

The star of the day, though, was Udara. It was his third Test, and he got in only because of a wrist injury to Pathum Nissanka. There had been 19 centuries in a 122-match first-class career, but nothing close to this sort of performance in international cricket before this – Udara had 78 runs in three Test innings with a best of 40.

“It’s a great feeling for me – it’s my first hundred [in Tests]. This is my third chance in Tests, so I thought I want to go big. I made it, so I’m really happy about that,” he said. “I was thinking about playing straight. And whenever they bowl me a bad ball, I’m going to score. That’s it.”