On the penultimate day of the second Test between West Indies and Sri Lanka at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, a career-defining, eight-and-a-half-hour innings from batter Justin Greaves dragged the match firmly toward a inevitable draw heading into the final day on Tuesday. Greaves’ dogged, run-filled knock of 180 from 325 deliveries drained all momentum from Sri Lanka’s bid to secure an outright victory, helping the host side post a competitive first-innings total of 499 from 165.5 overs that gave the visitors a narrow 50-run lead at the end of the first innings. By the close of Monday’s play, West Indies had fought back to take two key second-innings wickets, leaving Sri Lanka stranded on 92 for two with an overall lead of just 142 runs.
The day began with West Indies holding a solid position at 318 for four, with experienced opener Shai Hope on 86 and Greaves not far behind on 85. Greaves moved past his batting partner early in the session with a beautifully timed cover drive for four off pace bowler Asitha Fernando, but Hope quickly responded with a boundary off Milan Rathnayake to climb to 98. Moments later, Hope reached a historic milestone: he notched his first Test century on home Caribbean soil, and his fifth overall in international red-ball cricket, by clipping a single through cover off Rathnayake that pushed West Indies to 349 for four. A single from Hope off the first delivery of the next over also ensured West Indies cleared the follow-on margin, eliminating any immediate pressure on the home side.
Not long after, Greaves, who had been stuck on 99 for several overs, reached his third career Test century — and his second at the Antigua-based Sir Vivian Richards Stadium — with a quick single to mid-on. The two batters adopted a steady approach of rotating the strike for singles and doubles as the lunch break approached, but a bizarre dismissal cut their partnership short just minutes before the interval. With the score at 386 for four, Hope attempted to pad away a delivery from left-arm spinner Sonal Dinusha that drifted down the leg side. The ball missed Hope’s bat and pads, ricocheted off wicketkeeper Kusal Mendis’ glove onto the stumps, and dislodged the bails while Hope was out of his crease, ending his innings at 112 from 243 deliveries after more than six hours at the crease.
West Indies captain Roston Chase joined Greaves in the middle, and the pair carried the home side to lunch at 406 for five with no further damage. Their sixth-wicket stand added 52 crucial runs, but Chase, who had already been struck several times by short-pitched bowling from Fernando, finally edged another bouncer behind to the keeper to be dismissed for 23. Fernando followed up by dismissing Anderson Phillip for a golden duck, while Rathnayake claimed the wicket of Alzarri Joseph, caught at fine leg for 13, dropping West Indies to 465 for eight with just two wickets remaining. Greaves batted on with the lower order, adding 34 vital runs alongside tailenders Shamar Joseph and Jayden Seales, before he became the last man out. His marathon innings included 14 fours and two sixes, and it bled nearly all the remaining time out of Sri Lanka’s bid to force a result.
Fernando finished as Sri Lanka’s leading bowler with impressive figures of five wickets for 130 runs, while Oshada Jayasuriya claimed three wickets for 131 to round out the visitors’ bowling performance. Chasing the opportunity to push for a win, Sri Lanka needed to score quickly in their second innings, but they stumbled into early trouble. Shamar Joseph trapped opener Lahiru Udara lbw with just two runs on the board, and the situation worsened when Nishan Fernandez fended a short delivery from Alzarri Joseph straight to slip, where John Campbell took a spectacular full-stretch catch to leave the visitors at 32 for two.
However, experienced batter Dinesh Chandimal and Kamindu Mendis steadied the innings for Sri Lanka with an unbroken 62-run third-wicket partnership, scoring at a rate of more than five runs per over to see their side through to the close of play. At stumps, Chandimal was unbeaten on 40 and Mendis remained not out on 30, setting up a low-stakes final day that is widely expected to end in a draw.