From the moment the ball left the sweeping blade of Jayawardene my initial reaction was that Steve Waugh was about to repeat his miraculous MCG catch where he ran behind the sight screen to secure an unbelievable grab. As the seconds passed though, it became horrifyingly evident that a moment of joy and jubilation was about to be replaced by a terrible collision. As most of the world has now witnessed, the violent encounter between our captain and young speedster Jason Gillespie ended in disaster.

It still doesn't seem real that 'Tugga' has a nose that now reveals a Mike Tyson opponent, while 'Dizzy' has a broken leg. On the field most concern surrounded our captain, due mainly to the blood that covered his face, but in reality it was 'Dizzy' who was in most danger of doing further harm. Obviously everyone was overwhelmed at the time but thanks to our outstanding physio Errol Alcott some sort of calm was achieved as our two injured team-mates were helped off the ground.

From all accounts 'Dizzy' was in a great deal of pain in the changing rooms while 'Tugga', who is as tough as a pit bull terrier, felt nauseous but in a relatively stable state of mind. He obviously had his wits about him because he demanded that Dave Misson, our fitness co-ordinator, take a couple of photos of his newly achieved facial blunder, for his next book. To the credit of the Sri Lankans both of the guys were taken by helicopter to the best hospital in Colombo. Within a couple of hours of the incident the best surgeons in this country were working to put back to pieces the bones of our leader and our country's fastest bowler. Our latest reports tell us that both have been under general anethesetic to fix the breaks and should be in a reasonable state within 24 hours.

When the helicopter flew over the ground with our mates inside there was a huge lift in spirits on the field. All the boys were very fired up by the incident that has left a huge hole in the soul of the team. Taking over the captaincy, 'Warney' bowled brilliantly to get us back in the game, while Colin Miller lent grand support to his more experienced skipper. Between them our two spinners took nine wickets to have the Sri Lankans only 46 runs ahead on the first innings.

On a pitch that is spinning sharply with variable bounce, we knew going out to bat that any decent score would have us in the box seat of this Test match. Unfortunately at stumps we have given away our advantage due to spells of tidy bowling by 'Murali' and Vaas and some loose batting. With three days to go it looks like this could be another three-day Test, a very disappointing start to what promised, only three days ago, to be a very successful tour of Sri Lanka.

Cricket is a funny old game and with this in mind you just never know what might happen tomorrow. Winston Churchill once said: "Never, never, never give up", a statement that we will be using when the sun rises in the morning. We owe it to our two mates who are sitting in hospital tonight pondering their short-term futures and wondering why and how these cruel fates have fallen upon them today.

From Kandy, JL