The target for Sri Lanka’s cricketers to complete their mission of recording the country’s maiden Test win in India is simple. They need to take eight more wickets to secure that elusive win in India and with at least 90 overs left today - the final day of the Test, on a track where some balls keep low, history should be in the making here at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad.

After a day where several records fell, the Sri Lankans declared on a mammoth 760 for seven one hour into lunch with a first innings lead of 334. They had a crack at the Indians for 45 overs on the penultimate day of the Test and picked up two wickets including the crucial one of Rahul Dravid.

The day however, completely belonged to Mahela and Prasanna Jayawardene, who laid the foundation for what could be an historic win and in the process broke several records, most importantly the 72-year-old World Record for the sixth wicket.

In 1937, Sir Don Bradman and Jack Fingleton had added 346 runs for the sixth wicket at the MCG against England and the two Sri Lankans, who share the same surname, put on 351 runs breaking Test cricket’s oldest partnership record.

The Sri Lankans now possess the World Records for the second, third, fourth and sixth wickets in Test cricket and Jayawardene has been involved in three of those with Kumar Sangakkara, Thilan Samaraweera along with Prasanna being his partners during his record breaking efforts.

They batted the whole of the morning session yesterday further strengthening Sri Lanka’s position and in all had batted for three full sessions.

India took the new ball in the morning immediately after it was due, but the decision backfired as the new ball brought in quick runs instead of wickets. The two batsmen were going steadily scoring four runs an over and one hour into the day’s play, the Indian bowlers and fielders gave in, hoping for the declaration to come.

True the wicket was flat, but the application, enthusiasm, patience and the sheer mental strength Mahela proved why he’s the country’s best batsman at the moment by a distance and a much under-rated player among contemporary cricketers.

The sheer quality of his knock overshadowed the efforts of the other Jayawardene, who may have been under some sort of pressure coming into the game.

Mahela occupied the crease for more than ten hours for his marathon 275 where he faced 435 deliveries hitting 27 boundaries and a six.

His resistance ended when he came down the track to hoist leg-spinner Amit Mishra, who was persisting on a negative line coming round the wicket and bowling outside the leg-stump. Mahela’s attempt to go inside out didn’t pay off as he was beaten by the flight and was bowled.

When he reached his 253rd run in the morning, Jayawardene completed 9000 runs in Test cricket. The former captain is now ninth in the all time list of most run scorers in the history of the game. He also completed 1000 runs in the calendar year, joining team-mate Thilan Samaraweera and England captain Andrew Strauss as the only players to have reached the milestone this year.

Prasanna, meanwhile was a revelation. The inclusion of Kaushal Silva in the Test squad wasn’t good news for the wicketkeeper as that meant that Sri Lanka looked for big scores from him.

He had only scored a hundred against Bangladesh before this and when he walked into bat at 375 for five, the game was still hanging in the balance. But by providing solid support to Mahela what he did was to ensure that there can be only one winner in this game.

Resuming from his overnight score of 84, the only moment of uncertainty for Prasanna came when he top edged an Ishant Sharma delivery, that too on 99, but fortunately for him that died on Rahul Dravid at first slip and soon he reached three figures with a boundary.

He went onto post his highest score in Tests and was unbeaten on 154 when Sangakkara decided to declare once Dammika Prasad got out.

The total of 760 for seven is the sixth highest in the history of Test cricket and Sri Lanka’s second highest.

Given more than four sessions to survive, India started off positively and raced to 77 for no loss at tea time.

In the first over after tea, Virender Sehwag reached his half-century off a boundary but in the same over took the bait to play a big shot off Rangana Herath, but failed to get to the pitch of the ball and ended up giving Angelo Mathews a catch at mid-on.

Rahul Dravid then added 88 runs with Gautam Gambhir and the defining moment for the Sri Lankans came when Chanaka Welagedara came round the wicket and trapped the batsman leg-before wicket.

Mishra was sent in as the night watchman and he survived some nervous moments before stumps. Gambhir, meanwhile was looking solid unbeaten on 74.

T. Dilshan ct Dravid b Zaheer 112

T. Paranavithana ct Dhoni b Ishant 35

K. Sangakkara ct Tendulkar b Zaheer 31

M. Jayawardene b Mishra 275

T. Samaraweera ct Yuvraj b Ishant 70

A. Mathews ct Gambhir b Harbhajan 17

P. Jayawardene not out 154

D. Prasad ct Mishra b Harbhajan 21

Extras: (b 5, lb 16, nb 20, w 4) 45

Total: for 7 wickets declared       760

Overs: 202.4

Fall of wickets: 1-74, 2-189, 3-194, 4-332, 5-375, 6-726, 7-760.

Bowling: Zaheer 36-6-109-2 (9 nb) (2 w), Ishant 33-0-135-2 (3 nb) (2 w),

Harbhajan 48.4-4-189-2, Mishra 58-6-203-1 (8 nb), Yuvraj 16-1-64-0,

Tendulkar 7-0-20-0, Sehwag 4-1-19-0.

G. Gambhir not out 74

V. Sehwag ct Mathews b Herath 51

R. Dravid lbw b Welagedara 38

A. Mishra not out 12

Extras : (lb 7, nb 8) 15

Overs: 45

To bat: S. Tendulkar, V.V.S. Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, M.S. Dhoni, Harbhajan

Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma.

Bowling:

Welagedara 9-0-31-1 (1 nb), Prasad 9-0-49-0 (3 nb), Herath

13-0-47-1, Muralitharan 14-0-56-0 (4 nb)

Umpires: Tony Hill (NZ) and Darrel Harper (Aus)

Match Referee: Jeff Crowe (NZ)