Early in his innings, on the second evening, Steven Smith went back to try to cut Rangana Herath off the line of the stumps. The ball skidded through, Smith was hurried in his shot, and the ball skittered away for no run. Immediately, Smith reeled away in self-recriminating histrionics, angry at himself for taking the same risk that resulted in his dismissal in Galle.
Of all his Test hundreds, this was perhaps Smith's most draining. He has had a difficult tour, his first experience of defeat as captain, and tried several methods to succeed as a batsman in a region where he had never scored a century.
There had been extremes of approach in Pallekele; first a harebrained charge down the pitch that precipitated a ruinous first innings, then a highly disciplined second innings wagon wheel; his scoring was restricted almost exclusively to leg side deflections until Rangana Herath found a way through. In Galle, Smith tried something in between with limited success, before, if anything, adding a few more shots to the locker at the SSC.
Importantly, he chose to add the inside out drive over cover to his methods of scoring off Herath, a shot the left-arm spinner is known to detest almost as much as the blow to the groin that took him from the field for periods of days two and three. Smith was then able to rejoice in the success of Shaun Marsh, and mark a milestone of his own: a first hundred in Asia and the first signs that Australia might be able to find a workable blueprint to defeat India at home in February-March 2017.
There were plenty of cues to be taken from the way Marsh went about his own business: covering his stumps, not being perturbed by balls that spun and capitalising on anything fractionally loose. There was also liberal use of the sweep shot - the result of overnight discussion between Marsh, the coach Darren Lehmann and the team analyst Dene Hills - including for the nibble down leg side that took him to three figures for the fourth time in Tests.
"I was just trying to stick to my game plan," Marsh said. "Trying to play for the straight ball and if it spun past me so be it. I was basically trying to do that over and over again and it was really challenging out there. It was good fun.
"Last night night when [Dilruwan Perera] came over the wicket to me, he caused me a few little problems. So I had a good chat with Boof and Dene Hills last night and it was certainly something for me to come out today and play that shot. It worked well. I was very relieved when it was called runs … I thought I got a little bit of glove there…"
But even as Smith and Marsh went on to a put together a stand of 246, the highest second wicket stand in Tests between Australia and Sri Lanka, the feeling remained that danger was only ever a ball or two away.
Smith and Marsh made a significant stride in Australia's efforts to find a better way in these conditions, but once they were dismissed, there was soon a reminder of how much more needs to be done by others. Having ascended as high as 267 for 1, the last nine went down for 112.
This was not, in fairness, an unprecedented occurrence in these parts. Plenty of Australian teams have fallen in similar heaps after a big stand is broken. In 2001 in India it happened virtually every time Matthew Hayden got out, in 2010 likewise after Ricky Ponting's exit. The progress made in Colombo was the fact that at least one partnership had been formed, so for once there was actually a platform to squander.
Even so, the litany that followed the dismissals of Marsh (to pace) and Smith will be a source of further concern for the coach Darren Lehmann and whoever is chosen to work as his full-time batting assistant after this tour. The inclusion of Moises Henriques as a No. 5 batsman reached a sad, yet foreseeable conclusion; the New South Wales allrounder poking around nervously until drawn out of his crease by Herath. While serious injury and a preponderance of Twenty20 assignments have made it hard for Henriques, the fact remained that the most recent of his four first-class hundreds was as far back as March 2015. Expecting another one here was asking a lot.
Adam Voges, Mitchell Marsh and Peter Nevill all showed varying signs of improvement, trying to adapt the clam style earlier exhibited by Smith and Shaun Marsh. Voges was perhaps unfortunate to be given out on a marginal lbw call, and Marsh could at least toast his first 50 since his second Test, against Pakistan in the UAE near enough to two years ago. Nevill's latest low score was a cause for more worries, as the wait for substantial runs from a wicketkeeper with a strong first-class record continues. A dropped catch in Australia's brief stint in the field was a sign of sapped confidence, and Nevill's edge on other suitors for the gloves will not last if that continues.
In all, this was a day in which Australia found the first few green shoots of genuine progress in Asia, yet still found themselves in a dicey position by the time stumps were drawn. Smith will be frustrated with this of course. At least he now has helped to fashion a working example of how his batsmen should operate in this part of the world.