Dhananjaya de Silva etched his name in the record books as the first Sri Lankan captain to score twin hundreds in a Test, on day three in Sylhet, as he and Kamindu Mendis brought Sri Lanka's innings back on track for the second time in this game.
The pair also became only the third in Test history to add 150-plus runs twice in the same Test. In the first innings, they had revived the innings from 57 for 5. Now they did so from 126 for 6, adding 173 for the seventh wicket.
De Silva, who was made Test captain earlier this year, is in many ways a man for a crisis; by virtue of his batting a lot at Nos. 5 and 6, he often has to bat with the lower order. And though it is too early to judge his leadership ability, he has shown signs that he is keen to keep the job for the long haul.
Batting coach Thilina Kandamby pointed out that de Silva trained with the side during the ODI series in Chattogram, from March 10 to 18, to prepare for this Test series. He could have returned to Sri Lanka for a break after the T20Is, but de Silva thought he was better off spending time understanding Bangladesh's conditions.
"He stayed back with us after the T20s when he was not picked for the ODIs," Kandamby said. "He had about eight or nine days to [go home and] come back fresh, but still he decided to stay back. He wanted to get to know about the wickets and conditions. I think it paid off as well. He had a couple of good training sessions with us during the ODI series. He was determined.
"I think he is handling [the captaincy] really well. We won his first Test in charge, against Afghanistan. He led the team very well. We have about two or three past captains [Karunaratne, Chandimal and Mathews] in our side, so they are guiding him too. We are starting to play as a group, especially with the experienced Test players."
In the field too, de Silva has shown signs of proactivity. He has rotated his bowlers well. For example, de Silva didn't hesitate to take Prabath Jayasuriya out of the attack after just one over when Bangladesh's tail-enders Shoriful Islam and Khaled Ahmed went after him. Jayasuriya was initially brought on to give the fast bowlers a break, so de Silva had a tough call to make but was decisive all the same. He's also not been afraid to go against his bowlers when it came to field changes in this Test.
Kandamby said that the Sri Lanka batters understood that supporting de Silva on the third day was key. "Dhananjaya has always had that determination and he's able to play his game regardless of the match situation. I know both of them [Dhananjaya and Kamindu] would have played without any records on their mind but at the moment we needed it most in both innings - I have watched a lot of cricket - these were some of best centuries I've seen."
"We didn't really talk too much about plans after the day's play yesterday, we decided to return fresh today and this morning was when we shared our thoughts with the players. I think the fact that we spoke to them closer to the start of the day was a good thing.
"That said, it was Dhananjaya who carried out the plan and I think it was because he was out in the middle that the rest of the batters knew that if they supported him well, we would be able to reach a good position."
That's how it worked out and given how the Sylhet Test has panned out since, de Silva will be hoping to quickly make it two wins in two on Monday to start his captaincy tenure.
With inputs from Madushka Balasuriya