Why bother fluffing around with all the other silly Christmas shoppers when you had Test cricket like this on all day? There's far more efficient times to shop, thus avoiding the masses and admiring a turbulent day's play, so shame on you if you were out Christmas shopping today.

Exciting days in Test cricket usually involve some sort of negative and today, with short-pitched bowling doing the trick the inability of both sets of batsmen to defend/attack the short stuff provided us with a lovely day of cricket. Sri Lanka picked up Trent Boult's wicket this morning and then went about building on their lead, which they did very well as Dimuth Karunaratne (27) and Kusal Mendis (46) saw off the new ball and laid a solid platform for this Test to go deep ... deeper than day four.

From that point on, Sri Lanka's batsmen completely forgot how to leave, sway and duck short-pitched bowling. From 71/1 to all out for 133, thanks in large part to a mental weakness and eagerness to feel bat on ball. Throw in some technical misgivings as pull-shots went sailing into the air, not along the carpet.

Other than that the kiwis did put the ball in good areas and picked up a few wickets in more conventional fashion. Tim Southee's 4/26 again showed why he's the leader of this attack and the fact that Trent Boult was once again below par was absorb by Doug Bracewell, Neil Wagner and their wickets. This is the joy of a four-pronged seam attack that all pose a threat, if someone's not quite at their best, someone else picks up the slack.

But damn, that feels like so long ago.

189 runs needed to win and sure, it was hard not to be confident that our lads could chase that down. Sri Lanka do have an emerging star, someone who possesses the exact skill set to make the most of a Seddon Park pitch that offered steep bounce. Dushmantha Chameera bowls quick, has a great bouncer and picked up Martin Guptill's wicket early with a ball that rose on to Guppy's gloves.

Tom Latham was next, not until he copped one on the helmet. Poor Tommy fell into the same trap that Ross Taylor would later fall into, poorly executing an attacking shot to a short ball.

Kane Williamson, or should I say Prince Kane was amazing, simply amazing. Even with a bung leg he's amazing and if he's not rewarded for his services with a century tomorrow I may cry. He and Brendon McCullum fought back, until McCullum, in typical McCullum fashion decided to dance down the track and hit Chameera out of the park. This was right at the start of Chameera's new spell and McCullum must have been keen to hit him out of the attack, or something like that.

Ah Brendon, you've watched many batsmen fall victim to horrible shots in this Test yet you as our leader do exactly that. Ah Brendon.

Sri Lanka are still in this Test, they need 5 wickets and bowled well today. While Chameera is their key weapon and the most likely to take a couple wickets quickly, the other bowlers (Lakmal, Pradeep and Mathews) are capable of hitting the right line and length to dismiss the lower order - as Lakmal showed by dismissing Mitchell Santner.

47 runs needed for the kiwis, I should be confident but I'm not. Not with how this Test has gone so far, at least we'll know that it will be all over by lunch. Now that's a perfect time to do some Christmas shopping.