Australia are in a strong position to win the first Test against Sri Lanka going into the final day, but the team's depth in personnel is looking more precarious, with Shane Watson a chance to lead Australia in the Boxing Day Test after Michael Clarke was sent for scans on an injured hamstring.
Sri Lanka were 2 for 65 at stumps, requiring another 328 runs on day five for an unlikely victory at Bellerive Oval.
The overall target of 393 would beat Australia's highest-successful run chase at the venue of 369 against Pakistan in 1999.
Clarke retired hurt after making a quick-fire 57 in the afternoon session during Australia's second innings, before taking his place in the fielding side for the remainder of the day.
Australian coach Mickey Arthur told Grandstand he still expected the captain to take his place on the field for day five.
"He'll go for a scan tonight, he has got a hamstring problem," Arthur said.
"But the extent of that I'm not quite sure. He'll go straight off and have that scanned, and we'll get more news on that tomorrow.
"I imagine he would be (back for day five), Michael wants to be involved in everything ... he wants to marshal the troops hopefully to a Test win, so I'm pretty sure he'll be out there."
However the coach later told reporters that if Clarke did not recover in time for the second Test, vice-captain Watson was the obvious contender to lead Australia.
"It is a distinct possibility. I think it will be a really good challenge for Shane," Arthur said.
"We'll learn a lot about Shane and we'll learn a lot about his leadership ability. I'm confident he'll come through that very well."
Arthur also had bad news relating to Hilfenhaus, who has not bowled since going off in the morning session of day three with a side strain - although like Clarke he fielded in Sri Lanka's second innings.
"The latest there is that Hilfy's got a side injury, and it will definitely rule him out of the Boxing Day Test and we'll just see where that takes us," he told Grandstand.
Australia began day four on 0 for 27 with a lead of 141.
Ed Cowan and David Warner pushed their opening partnership to 132 before Warner was caught by Mahela Jayawardene off Herath for 68.
Cowan was out soon after for 56, bowled by Chanaka Welegedara, before a middle-order mini-collapse where Shane Watson (5), Phil Hughes (16) and Matthew Wade (11) were out in quick succession, leaving the Australians at 5 for 181.
Michael Clarke then produced an entertaining cameo of 57 runs off 46 balls - including five fours and a six - before retiring.
The Sri Lankans took care of the tail, bowling Australia out for 278. Spinner Rangana Herath took 5 for 96, giving him 60 Test wickets for the calendar year, one ahead of his nearest rival, England spinner Graeme Swann..
Sri Lanka were set 393 for victory, but the tourists were forced to bat for survival after losing Dimuth Karunaratne for 30 and first-innings centurion Tillakaratne Dilshan for 11.
The pitch looked to be deteriorating rapidly, with various balls swinging, skidding low and taking off on the batsmen.
It was left to two of Sri Lanka's veterans, Mahela Jayawardene (5 not out) and Kumar Sangakkara (18 not out), to keep the innings afloat.
The pair will need to bat long into the final day to give their team a chance of saving the match, although Australia will again be a bowler down without Hilfenhaus.
"I thought we were very good today, we obviously tried to put the foot down a little bit and get as many as we could to give ourselves the maximum amount of time to bowl them out," Arthur told Grandstand.
"I thought we bowled really well the last session, so I'm happy where we're at at the moment.
Asked if Sri Lanka could still win the Test, Arthur said it was possible, but a difficult ask.
"It's going to be tough - we saw the minute we wanted to up the (scoring) rate, it became quite tough to score on that wicket," he said.
"It was ok to survive, but to try and score as well made it pretty difficult.
"Nothing's impossible, but we'd like to say we'd be able to bowl them out or restrict them."
Herath told Grandstand that his team was by no means giving up on the chase.
"What we needed is get some runs without losing wickets," he said.
"Unfortunately we lost a couple of wickets, but we will stick with the same game plan in the morning.
"If we can get through the first session without losing wickets, we (will be in) a good position to win the game."
He said he expected the pitch to take more turn and variable bounce on day five.
ABC / AFP
Tags: sport, cricket, australia, tas, hobart-7000, sri-lanka First posted December 17, 2012 19:16:59
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