Martyn shines on gloomy day

Damien Martyn cracked a second successive century as Australia surged into a strong position in the second Test against Sri Lanka here today...

Damien Martyn cracked a second successive century as Australia surged into a strong position in the second Test against Sri Lanka here today.

The stylish middle-order batsman scored an unbeaten 104 as Australia reached 320-5 in their second innings when bad light and rain stopped play in the afternoon session on the third day.

Australia are now 229 runs ahead with five wickets in hand. Andrew Symonds was batting on six with Martyn.

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Martyn, who scored 110 in the previous Test at Galle, continued to relish the Sri Lankan attack as he hit 14 fours in his seventh Test hundred in 41 matches. He made Sri Lanka pay dearly for letting him off in the day’s third over with his rich stroke-play on both sides of the wicket.

Martyn had added just one to his overnight score of 64 when he edged left-arm fast bowler Nuwan Zoysa to second slip, where Mahela Jayawardene grassed a low catch to his right.

There was no stopping martyn after that as he continued to play steadily against both pace and spin on a pitch getting better and better for batting with each session. Australia were unfortunate to lose skipper Ricky Ponting to a poor decision after the batsman had contributed a neat 27.

Sri Lanka bowled well in the opening hour to dismiss Adam Gilchrist (144) and Darren Lehmann (21) before being thwarted by Martyn.