Huge innings defeat for battered SL

Sri Lanka 156 and 4 for 43 trail Australia 460 (Clarke 106, Johnson 92*, Watson 83, Warner 62, Prasad 3-106, Eranga 3-109) by 261 runs

Mitchell Johnson was left unbeaten on 92 after Nathan Lyon and Jackson Bird fell quickly

Sri Lanka reeled from the decapitation of their second innings as Australia rumbled closer to victory on the third morning of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. After Mitchell Johnson guided the hosts to a first innings advantage of 304 with an unbeaten 92, he and Jackson Bird combined to reduce Sri Lanka to 4 for 13, leaving Kumar Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews in forlorn occupation at lunch.

The destruction of Sri Lanka's innings began in the first over. Dimuth Karunaratne was farcically run out after taking his team's first run, and next ball Tillakaratne Dilshan squeezed a Johnson short ball to short leg. Bird again made a striking impression, deceiving Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera with his immaculate line and a little movement in either direction

Bird and Nathan Lyon had failed to keep Johnson company for long enough to allow the left-hander his second Test hundred after a rasping effort in Cape Town in 2009, but this was to seem of little consequence once the Sri Lankans began batting..

Lyon's intention when play resumed had to be to hang around while Johnson pushed towards his second Test century. However his actions did not match the goal, as after taking a single to get off a duck he was late on a pull shot at Angelo Mathews and lobbed the simplest of catches to midwicket.

That left Johnson with the company of only the last man Jackson Bird, who with a first-class batting average of 8.22 was certainly entitled to his station beneath Lyon in the order. Needing another 17 runs when Bird walked tot he middle, Johnson set about the task with good sense, pinching singles here and there while also driving Mathews sweetly down the ground.

He had made it as far as 92 when Bird faced up to Eranga, who delivered a ball that was fast, full and more or less wasted on the batsman, who was comically late as the ball crashed into middle and off stumps. Johnson accepted a gesture of consolation from Bird before jogging off the field, assuming his next task of taking the new ball in the second innings.

Johnson did not have long to wait for a celebration, Karaunaratne pushing into the offside third ball of the innings and setting off fatally for a second run as David Warner fielded and threw sharply back to the bowler, whose dive to break the stumps beat Karunaratne comfortably. Dilshan's first ball was short, fast and at the batsman's armpit, forcing a self-preervative stroke that lopped off glove and thigh for Ed Cowan to run back and catch - 2 for 1.

Jayawardene's decline as an international batsman on foreign shores has been dispiriting for those who have witnessed his best, and here he was defeated by Bird's line, unsure whether to play or leave and withdrawing his bat too late to avoid a wretched inside edge onto the stumps.

Samaraweera played Bird uncertainly from the crease, and when the bowler seamed one back at him was pinned in front for a clear LBW, the batsman's DRS referral made more out of desperation than calculation. Replays duly showed the ball striking leg stump, leaving Sangakkara and Mathews to limp to the interval.

Daniel Brettig is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here

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