After thaw of almost a day and a half at least there was some life near the end of the second session of play in the second day’s play of the final Test when the stands started to fill up after the Friday prayer and Junaid Khan on two successive deliveries dismissed Angelo Mathews and Rangana Herath to have a break from the tedium of snail pace batting on a rather irresponsive, slow and placid pitch.

In the morning, when the ever threatening 73-run sixth wicket partnership was broken by Mohammad Talha and Parasanna Jayawardene holed out at long leg, one would have thought that the end will be not in the distance.

But cricket is a game of fluctuating fortunes. One moment it appears to be all high five and in the next there seems no place to hide. Test cricket is played that way and that is what makes this game so fascinating.

The wicket with slow bounce and turn for spinners without any juice and bite was already the bane for the Pakistan bowlers and, to compound their torture, there was a lot more for Misbah-ul-Haq’s men to taste as debutant Dilruwan Perera settled in to share 112 runs for the seventh wicket with Mathews.

Both Mathews and Perera, in their quest for big score, unluckily failed to get to the three-figure mark as they were so near and yet remained so far. But they did achieve what they had planned for. It was painful though to see Sri Lanka make only 57 runs in the second session to lengthen their occupation of the crease.

When you are up against a lifeless track then usually this is what happens. It will be unfair to blame the Pakistan bowlers who I thought did well but without much luck because of near misses and at times decisions given in favour of the batsmen.

For Pakistan batsmen it could be as much tough playing shots on this slow wicket but, now faced with the prospect of saving this game rather than winning it, they will have to bat steadily to first avoid the follow on which I suppose they will be able to if they do not become too enterprising in search of quick runs.

But then we all know how we bat. One day on top of the world and down in the dump the next.

In the three remaining days, this could be a gruelling contest between bat and ball and a real test for our batsmen on a pitch which has so far not shown any concern, at least for those who have the ability to hang around.