Sri Lanka won five World Test Championship Tests in 2024, putting them in contention for making the World Test Championship final in 2025, as recently as December. Three of those victories came away from home, which is what made that run especially impressive.

Kandamby pointed to instances in 2024, when it had been Kamindu's runs that rescued Sri Lanka.

"When we were in Bangladesh about a year ago, we were 57 for 5, and then the twin hundreds from Kamindu and DDS [de Silva] happened. At that time the middle order was scoring consistently, but in this series so far unfortunately it didn't happen." De Silva had also been excellent through parts of 2024, but had averaged a shade less than 50 in their wins that year. Kamindu had been the star, but has now fallen for 15, 32, and 13 against Australia.

His dip in output has meant that Sri Lanka have frequently faced difficult match situations. In the ongoing game, their 229 for 9 might prove a decent total, given the extremely spin-friendly nature of the pitch. But Kandamby wishes more of his batters would have fired.

"Targeting a total above 350 would have been ideal, but we're already nine down," Kandamby said. "But Kusal Mendis is there, and he has all the shots. I hope he'll score a few more runs and get us to 275 ideally."