The ‘Caps are in a pretty good space here. 308 runs ahead with nine wickets and a couple of days remaining, this is a test that is there for the winning. A top effort of quality cricket after the uphill climb of the Aussie tour. In fact, in the same way that the BLACKCAPS entered that previous tour underprepared, they’re entering this one very over-prepared and the standard of opposition that they’re coming from… it’s like a baseballer warming up with weights on his bat and then taking them off as he heads out to slug a few balls over the fence.

Marty Guptill slugged one over the fence. You know he’s feeling good when this shot comes out, it’s a limited overs special for him usually.

Scoring 400 runs on day one has really pushed this game forward. It also meant that while the Sri Lankans were able to fight for their wickets pretty commendably, their 117.1 overs were worth a whole lot less than NZ’s 96.1.

The stars of yesterday were Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal. Two of the bats hoped to carry this line-up in the post Sanga/Jayawardene days. Karunaratne we know plenty about already in this country after he tonned up in the boxing day test in Christchurch last year. You remember that one? It was when Brendon McCullum did this:

Brutal.

Karu’s 152 helped the Lankans scrap hard in the second innings after a 328-run first innings deficit but eventually the kiwis won it by eight wickets.

He fell in the 80s yesterday, while Chandimal resumed in the 80s today. But only for a few minutes before Tim Southee got him with the new ball on the second ball of the day. Sharp catch by Guppy in slips too. Southee then got Kithuruwan Vithanage in his second over of the morning. Caught behind on the drive after whipping a couple boundaries. But at 209/6 and the follow on suddenly a possibility, Sri Lanka once again were able to stick around under pressure. Too often in cricket you see the unfancied teams unable to arrest a collapse after that one big partnership. It’s happened to us plenty of times on the road and it happens against us at home now and then. But this is a better Sri Lankan team than it gets credit for.

Rangana Herath and Milinda Siriwardana found themselves playing to a symphony of chin music – largely from Neil Wagner. Herath wore one on the noggin but was alright, and the pair put on 42 before Siri was caught at slip fending at a shortie.

We got ‘em for 294 in the end, a lead of 137. Solid stuff after a solid and concerted bowling effort. Southee was the MVP with 3/71, while Wagner also got himself three-for and Boult and Santner a pair of wickets each.

At this stage, the BLACKCAPS are well on top, but a poor session of batting would ruin it all. So shout out to Guptill and Latham for sticking around. They didn’t always look comfortable though in truth they also weren’t really threatened. At least not until Guppy got clean bowled by a Herath googly that literally, instead of bouncing as a regular delivery would, burrowed under the pitch, past his bat, and rose back above ground and into the stumps after it had passed his sinking bat. Or maybe it just looked that way.

The Prince Kane came in and he and Latham saw their way through to stumps. Lathan 72 not out and Williamson an unbeaten 48. 171/1 and a lead of 308. For here you’d assume bat for a session or two and then it’s all out attack for the test victory. Come on lads.

Nice to see Latham pass fifty with a bit of breathing room. He continually got starts in Oz but had a high score of only 50. A test opener needs to be able to stick around through the tough patches and TL probably needed this innings. Hopefully he can add an extra digit to it on day four. As for Kane Williamson, there’s not too much to say about him other than to marvel at the numbers. His eighth run meant he passed 1000 in tests for 2015, to go along nicely with his 1317 ODI runs – which just happen to be the most of any batsman this year. Until McCullum’s 302-influenced 1164 test runs in 2014, no kiwi batsman had ever managed that feat. You get the feeling that Kane’s got a few more years like this in him.

This feels like the skeleton of a longer exploration (to be conducted in the near future with a little luck) but Kane Williamson is, in his quiet, unfussed way, going about one of the all-time great years in modern cricket. Here is the list for the most combined runs in a calendar year, tests, ODIs and T20Is combined:

Add in the 88 he made in the first innings and his current tally of 48* and he’s got 2501 all up. Tenth all-time. And he’s got the rest of this innings, another test match and three one-dayers to add to this tally too.